


Western Rising

by reading_is_in



Series: New World Order Verse [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-25
Updated: 2013-01-04
Packaged: 2017-11-10 16:52:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 19
Words: 46,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/468541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reading_is_in/pseuds/reading_is_in
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sequel to <i>First Taught the Chosen Seed</i>. Three months have passed since the massacre at the compound. Sam and Dean wander the badlands, but events force them to return to civilization. An unexpected rescue makes Dean a hero in the eyes of Ghosts across the wilderness, and rumours of Sam’s abilities continue to circulate. More and more outcasts are organizing to oppose the State. Meanwhile, a charismatic prodigy named Lilith is rising in the Resistance: a brilliant soldier who burns for the end of the State, and the head of the man she blames for the death of her leader.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Rebels and the revolutionaries are only eddies, they keep the stream from getting stagnant but they get swept down and absorbed, they're a side issue. Quiet desperation is another name for the human condition. If revolutionaries would learn that they can't remodel society by day after tomorrow -- haven't the wisdom to and shouldn't be permitted to -- I'd have more respect for them ... Civilizations grow and change and decline -- they aren't remade.” ― Wallace Stegner, _Angle of Repose_

To be weak is miserable– John Milton, _Paradise Lost_.

Prologue.

Most people were in love with Prometheus, but Lilith believed by the end of his life that she came to love Nick too. The man as well as the visionary, the human as well as the legend. Nick wasn’t the messiah, after all, but he had been the most powerful leader the Resistance had in generations, and to love him was to love their ideals and everything they stood for. She was fourteen the first time she saw him in person, not an image on a flickering telescreen: he had come to Far North on one of his intermittent speaking tours, and the charisma and conviction he projected from the speaker’s podium thrilled her body and mind over acres of hard-packed snow, the crowds between them vanishing until he was speaking only to her. Her breath misted in front of her face, hot prickles trapped by the fur of her collar, and she clenched her fingers and toes unconsciously.

His voice penetrated her dreams.

She couldn’t phyiscally follow him. No-one knew the location of all the other cells, and no-one knew Prometheus’s movements. Besides, she was still a child, in the care of a group home, but at 16 she left and at 17 she made lieutenant, and within the next year she had made enough of a name for herself that he knew who she was. He was spending more time in the North now. The first time she talked to him she was 18 years old and had just finished extracting the whereabouts and aims of a deserter from his remaining family. He was of unknown age, and he was at the barracks for a strategy meeting with the General. The General was a middle aged man with a craggy face, and the strangest eyes Lilith had ever seen, cat-like and almost yellow. After dinner, he called her to his office. Heart pounding, knowing who was waiting for her, Lilith wiped off her knife and checked herself in the mirror – free of mess, uniform impeccable and her straight blonde hair neatly pinned back, her narrow face and pale blue eyes revealed none of her nervousness. She knocked, received word to enter, and saluted.

He had aged. The lines around his eyes and mouth were deeper, but the calm purpose he radiated was as strong as ever.

“Officer,” he’d addressed her in his mild voice. “I’ve heard excellent things about your performance.”

He was relocating his base of operations. She became a member of his personal guard, and she didn’t even have to leave the icy beauty of the North, the frozen expanses and hardy, dark shrubs that were the only home she had known. Later, she became his lover:

“You know what they say about you,” she said one night, her hand low on the warmth of his belly, his face in her hair.

He chuckled low in his throat. “I’m not,” he said.

She was silent.

“There is a savior, Lily, but it isn’t me.”

“They think it is.”

He made a dismissive sound. They were interrupted by an urgent message – a State convoy would be passing near the compound within the hour.

Lilith never trusted Ruby. Maybe she was jealous – but Lilith was better than that, a better soldier, a shrewd judge of character. When Ruby deserted, part of her was relieved, part vindicated, part seething with anger – and when she contacted them again, offering to turn over one of the Special Children in return for amnesty, Lilith didn’t like it.

“I have to go,” Nick told her.

“She could be lying.”

“No,” Nick shook his head: “There’s tape.” 

And there was. Nick summoned his personal guards and some of his chief advisors, and displayed the film in his office. Grainy black and white footage, possibly from a pen-camera, displayed a stone room in distorted view. Lilith guessed it was under ground, judging from the quality of the light. Ruby – weirdly stretched but quite recognizable – stood by the far wall, hands folded over her chest, and her eyes were on the room’s other occupants. A boy, very tall with long hair and features that looked vaguely pointed, stood side-on to the camera with one hand extended: he seemed to be expending some intense effort, face pained and twisted. In a corner, just in range of the camera, was a State drone. The drone was tied to a chair. There was no sound, but his mouth was gaping and gasping, eyes wide, and Lilith supposed he was screaming or shouting in agony. Suddenly, with what Lilith imagined as a wet pop, dark blood burst from the drone’s mouth and his eyes rolled back in his skull. His head flopped limply on his neck. The boy dropped his hand and bent double, panting, with his hands on his knees. Ruby jumped a little in delight and hugged him. They moved out of the camera’s range, and left the room. The camera continued to record the body.

“Marvellous,” crooned Alastair, Nick’s chief interrogator, in his thick, nasal voice. “Have you ever seen anything so beautiful, my dear?” his presence at her back made her tense.

“It’s impressive,” Lilith admitted.

“It’s him,” Nick shrugged. “I don’t know how, or by what chain of events he came there but….there’s only one child of the right age who could possibly have developed that ability. It’s Mary’s son. Killing State soldiers.” He laughed. It was probably the lightest sound Lilith had ever heard from him. “I need him. We need him. I don’t care about Ruby. If she’s gotten any unfortunate ideas, well, she’s easily expendable. I’ll take a guard,” he said, eyes meeting Lilith’s briefly. She volunteered , but he asked her to stay to supervise the reinforcement of the southern electric fence. If he’d ordered she might have argued with him, but he asked. Nick died on that mission, him and all his guard, and though the official line was that they could not know the truth because there were no survivors, Lilith had only two candidates in mind. It was Ruby, or the boy, and now she was robbed of the cold satisfaction now of killing either of them.

 

1.

 

Sam sat with his back against the trunk of an ancient cedar, rock cool against his thighs through his trousers as he concentrated on his skinning the hare carcass. The knife was good – Dean had bartered for it yesterday with a convoy of Ghosts, in exchange for a skein of rope that could be used for trapping or climbing. He wasn’t thinking about anything in particular. This was a skill he’d develop over the past months, the ability to not think, to feel only the textures under his hands and the shade of the tree and the rock under him. He could hear the breeze, quiet and faint, and the rasp of the knife against fur. He was tired, and felt marginally hungry, and later he was going to eat. He was not unhappy.

A familiar step alerted him to Dean’s presence. He looked up. His mouth curved up involuntarily as Dean appeared from behind the stones, closer than Sam expected.

“Hunted and gathered.” Dean laid a second hare at Sam’s feet with an exaggerated gesture.

“We’ll dry it,” Sam nodded to the back of the cave where they’d been sheltering the past night.

“You make a good wife.”

Sam rolled his eyes, still smiling. Whenever they were between settlements, Dean reverted to a string of caveman jokes, despite the fact they were eating the hare with a weak beer from the last Ghost town, and starting the fire with lighting fluid. Sometimes it was wiser to play along with his – everything. There wasn’t another word for Dean, and since that night after the massacre at the compound, they had rarely discussed the nature of their relationship. It was hard to keep track of time out here, but by Sam’s reckoning, about three months had passed since Zachariah had found them. It was summer. 

It had taken Dean some time to get back to what they were. He couldn’t get past the idea that he was somehow abusing Sam, taking advantage of him, despite the fact that Sam had first instigated the physical side of their relationship. This time, he had to wait for Dean to come to him. And Dean did, one night, when the abandoned hut they’d appropriated was lashed with summer rain, and they were separated by space and silence and rolls of waterproof bedding.

“Fuck,” Dean had muttered, finally, pounding his covers with one arm.

“What?” Sam had asked.

“Just. Fuck it. Sammy, come here.”

Sam hadn’t needed asking twice, he joined Dean in a split second, grinning, delighted, and Dean never told him what thought processes had brought him to invite Sam that night, and he never asked.

It was a hard life, weighed down with uncertainty, and he’d thought that the pointlessness of it would wear on him after a while. His life before had always been full of meaning. Sometimes it did weigh on him – sometimes, at night, his brain grasped at the threads of masterplans, grand narratives….but lately he had simply been…tired. Content to be able to fall asleep, Dean’s warmth against him. There was always the chance that State troops or unfriendly Ghosts or Resistance terrorists could find them in the night, shoot them before they knew what was happening, and when they were in or near populated areas, they took turns on guard. Neither wanted to die. Last night, Sam had fallen asleep in the middle of his watch. That day, they had moved.

“You alright?” Dean asked Sam now.

“Yeah,” said Sam automatically. There wasn’t any point in saying otherwise. He wanted to eat, but the rabbit felt strange in his mouth, hard to swallow, and a vague sick feeling in his stomach. ‘Just some bug’, he thought, ‘I’ll get over it’, but he didn’t even want to say that out loud, to call it a bug, to give it a name, because then it would be something. If there was one thing they couldn’t afford out here, it was sickness.

Dean passed him a plastic bottle of water, first checking the seal. They used iodine when they had to, but bottled water was always safer. It was their last bottle, but Sam took it, and drank without comment.

He fell asleep early.

The next day, he felt better, and indulged in relief. ‘Fuck you, bug,’ he thought happily. ‘I’m winning’. Dean could tell, and he smiled more, joked around, but didn’t suggest travelling. They holed up, spent most of the afternoon in the cave, talking about nothing, stupid stuff, not kissing by silent agreement. The only thing worse than one of them getting sick out here would be bothof them getting sick. They always kept a pair of bullets for the worst case scenarios.

“Tomorrow we should move on,” said Sam cheerfully. 

“Yeah?” Dean asked.

“Yeah. I-” then something moved in his gut, nauseating pain, and he gagged, felt the blood drain from his face .

“Sammy?” Dean asked, propping himself up on an elbow. Sam started to his feet and lurched to the entrance of the cave, just made it out of their living space before he vomited. By the time his stomach was empty, the bile was tinged with blood. ‘Shit,’ he thought in a moment of blind terror, ‘shit’. He irrationally wanted to hide the evidence, but of course Dean had followed him. There was nothing to say. They both knew what it could mean or not mean. Dean brought him some of the water he’d sterilized with iodine earlier, and Sam drank it.

“It’s probably…” Sam said. “I mean, that was it. Better out than in, right?”

“Right,” Dean said.

“The bug’s probably out of my system now.”

“Come and lie down,” Dean said.

Overnight, he vomited again and endured violent diarrhoea, humiliatingly forced to use a bush as far away from the cave as he could make it. Dean didn’t say anything, just kept making him drink water, though by early morning, Sam irrationally thought that since drinking would just make him vomit more, it was better if he didn’t. The cycle continued throughout the next day. He would drink at Dean’s insistence, but his body would purge it in blood-smeared excreta. He was violently nauseous, intermittently wracked by cramping pains in his stomach and abdomen. He wondered if he was going to die, and the thought brought tears to his eyes, which upset him all over again because the last thing he could afford to be doing was wasting moisture. Dean alternated between getting water to purify and sitting with Sam, one hand on his back or head, saying little. By evening, Sam felt shrivelled and wrung out. His entire body hurt, beyond tired, but too uncomfortable to sleep properly. Red sun was leaking into their shelter when he came out of a restless doze to hear Dean zipping up his backpack.

“I’ve been thinking,” Dean said, blowing out his breath.

Sam said nothing.

“You need a doctor,” Dean said. “Probably antibiotics. Something. You’re – getting sicker.” Dean didn’t look at him. Sam wanted to protest, say he was getting better and could get over this, but he’d be lying. He felt hot and disorientated. As though reading his mind, Dean said, “You’ve got a fever. So. We got two choices. One, we can go to the nearest town together. Travelling could make you sicker and will definitely make you more dehydrated. But you won’t have to walk the whole way. If you can make it to within cell phone range, there’s someone I can call in a favour from. He’s got a motorbike. Or, you can stay here. I’ll go. Get a doctor. It won’t take me more than a day.” He did not elaborate on whether he knew any doctors who owed him a favour as well, or planned on more forceful methods. He breathed in, then came to kneel next to Sam, cupping his face with one hand. Sam was tempted to close his eyes and not think – just enjoy this one pleasant sensation after so many awful ones. But he had to think. What would be less bad? To force himself to walk? Or lie here, alone with the sickness, waiting for Dean to come back and deliberately not thinking about any of the things that could happen to either one of them. Really, there was no contest.

“I’ll come,” he said, his voice a cracked parody of itself.

“You sure?”

“Yeah,” Sam closed his eyes, but he could hear Dean smiling. 

“I was kinda hoping you’d say that,” Dean admitted. “Come on then. Drink first.”

It was bad. But he’d known it would be bad, and he’d endured worse. Dean kept one arm around Sam and the other near the gun in his belt, and Sam was aware he was always watching, scanning the horizon. If you could shoot and had good hearing, travelling by night was sometimes safer in the badlands. Wild predators meant fewer humans around. Fewer humans meant fewer weapons.  
Sam could only look at the ground and concentrate on keeping moving. He was sick and in pain and repressing the urge to vomit constantly – twice they did have to stop, once for Sam to void himself in various ways.

“Oh my God,” he groaned, sitting down with his head in his hands after the second time. Dean wouldn’t let him stay on the ground. 

“Come on,” he said, pulling him up. “It’s not much further.”

Sam didn’t ask how Dean knew – cellphone signals were hardly reliable out here. The phone was strictly for emergencies. Dean had inserted a new SIM card into his phone before they left the cave, and to Sam’s relief it came to life. They never used the same SIM card more than once. 

“Here,” Dean said, stopping suddenly. He’d been checking the phone intermittently since they’d come to more pen land, somehow monitoring that on top of everything else he was doing. He allowed Sam to sink to ground against a protective boulder, and dialled a number from memory. Sam didn’t think about what he’d do if nobody answered. Dean said,

“Hey, Richie,” and Sam sighed in internal relief, then tensed again when he realized Dean was speaking to an answerphone. Dean kept one hand on Sam’s shoulder as he spoke: “It’s Dean. Call me back as soon you as get this. ASAP, alright man?” The phone beeped again.

“Normally screens his calls,” Dean said almost apologetically. 

“Uh huh,” Sam said.

“How’re you doing?”

“Alright.”

Dean’s mouth twisted in perception of the lie. “Wanna drink some more?”

“No.”

Dean squatted and felt Sam’s face again, gauging his temperature. “I think you’re a little cooler,” he said.

‘That’s because it’s night in the desert’, Sam did not respond. There was no point. 

Dean stood up and surveyed the land briefly. “We’re exposed,” he said. “But if we move I could lose the cell signal.”

“It’s alright,” Sam said. He was beyond tired. It was difficult to imagine this scenario ending well.

“Hey,” Dean seemed to sense something change in him and he jostled Sam’s shoulder, though not hard: “You’re gonna be fine, alright? We got out of worse than this, right?”

“Right.”

“I ever tell you about the time I had to kick two terrorists’ asses at once in order to get to a bomb under a village? It was primed to go off in like thirty seconds and the handler had a wire in my ear, but somebody fed her some false information and these guys had the drop on me…”

Dean had, in fact, told this story from his days in the Guard at least once before, but Sam was reasonably sure that wasn’t the point of him telling it. He focused on Dean’s voice and the action of breathing, allowing himself to close his eyes until the nausea in his stomach which moving had intensified started to ease off slightly.

The phone rang.

“Richie?” Dean cut himself off to answer on the first ring. “Yeah, yeah man I need that favor.   
Still got that glorified scooter? I’m about a mile south of where the railroads intersect.” 

Until he had seen the abandoned railroads that cut through the desert east and west, Sam never knew people used to travel here. He always meant to ask if the the badlands had once been the territory of the State, or if the Ghosts or the Resistance had ever been organized enough for that kind of infrastructure. “No I’m fine. It’s…a friend of mine. Ha ha. No, he’s pretty sick. Need to get him to a doctor. Okay. Okay, cool. Fifteen minutes.”

“He’ll be here,” Dean said, and Sam could hear the relief in his voice, the release of fear neither of them would put words to.

* * *

It was longer than fifteen minutes, Sam thought, but probably less than an hour. Time was hard to judge. At first, the buzzing in the distance sounded like insects, but too far away for insects to be audible. A dust-cloud appeared on the horizon and Dean straightened from his posture leaning against the rock, one hand on his gun still but an anxious expression of expectation on his face. 

“It’s Richie,” he affirmed a moment later, blowing out his breath. Assured, he removed the used SIM from the cellphone and snapped it in four pieces. One he pocketed; the rest he scattered in the dirt. Not one, but two motorcycles materialized, and came on rapidly over the firm ground. The sound of the engines were jarring, intrusive in the desert night. They pulled up, and the riders dismounted. Dean stepped forward to clasp the hand of the larger vehicle’s rider: a short, dark-haired man with a prominent nose and an easy smile. Richie, Sam presumed. His companion was a blonde woman in her late twenties, with long legs and a strong face. Both wore jeans, and the man a battered leather jacket.

“Hey Deano, long time no see,” said Richie. Sam blinked. He doubted he’d ever met such a cheerful ghost. The woman was more of the usual type – quiet, wary. She nodded to both of them. “This is Janine,” Richie said, slipping an arm around her waist. 

“Good to meet you,” Dean shook her hand, absently, automatic, and it marked his preoccupation that he didn’t even spare a glance for her fit, well-proportioned body. “This is Sam,” he helped Sam up, but subtly, hand on his arm. 

“Hey, I heard about you,” Richie sounded surprised. “Didn’t you ice that security chief when the compound got overrun?”

“No,” said Sam, confused, and filing it away to find out at some point what that rumour was about. “I mean, I was there but…someone else killed him. One of the communists. She’s dead.”

“Oh,” Richie looked vaguely disappointed. “Any case, sorry I couldn’t meet you under better circumstances. Any friend of this guy….”

“We should get going,” Dean said. “I’ll call you when I get a new SIM about returning it.”

“Do that,” said Janine, speaking up at last. “This is a serious favor.”

“His word’s good, babe,” Richie assured her. “Plus I owe the guy. You guys look out for yourselves.”

“You too,” said Dean. Sam made some generic appropriate farewell, and got up behind Dean on the bike that Richie had vacated. Richie took a seat behind his girlfriend and she kicked the bike into gear, revved aggressively, and drove off.

TBC


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Major props to zara_zee @ LJ for the fast and fluent beta.

The Ghost town was bigger than most Sam had seen, sprawling haphazard across the skyline in the dawn sun. Dean kept both hands on the handlebars for the most part, but intermittently he covered Sam’s where they linked around his waist, as though to assure himself Sam was still holding on. The noise of the machine had gone on long enough to have muted in Sam’s mind, become nothing. He concentrated on remaining seated. 

Dean pulled the bike up near a wooden structure at the outskirts of the town. It appeared to be some kind of watch post – a man was seated inside and a woman leaned against it, a rifle prominently displayed at her side. 

“Yeah?” said the gunwoman as Dean pulled up, apparently unimpressed by the bike or its riders. One hand went to the butt of the rifle, but she didn’t raise it. 

“Doc Singer still live here?” 

“Who’s asking?” 

“No-one.” Dean pushed up his sleeve to display the rough scar on his forearm where the identichip had been removed. The guard gestured to her friend inside the hut, who passed out a scanner. He ran the scanner over both Sam and Dean’s arms, and nodded in satisfaction as it registered nothing. 

“Leave that here,” she nodded at the gun on Dean’s hip. 

“How do I know you’ll give it back?” Dean asked. 

“You don’t,” said the woman levelly. 

Dean held her eyes for a moment, and Sam could see the frustration he tamped down on. Sam knew his face well enough by now that he saw the moment Dean came to a decision – it wasn’t as though he was defenceless even without a weapon, and he wanted to move this on. He unholstered his gun and handed it over. 

“Second street on your left, left again at the first turning, third house on the right,” said the guard. “Not that he’ll appreciate calls at this time of the morning.”

Dean nodded shortly and kicked the bike back into gear. Sam closed his eyes. In moments they arrived at the doctor’s house, a brick structure with tarp covering two windows. Dean helped Sam off the bike, but surreptitiously, and Sam tried not to be too obvious in leaning on him. It was always better not to show weakness when other people were around. 

Their first knock went unanswered. Dean narrowed his mouth and tried again, louder. After a moment a gruff voice called, 

“Someone better be dyin out there.” 

“It’s me,” Dean called. “Got a patient for you!” 

“What the-!” A series of heavy, uneven footsteps approached. “Goddamit boy. What kind of time do you call this?” the door was yanked open from inside, no chain or apparent locks, to reveal a man in the fifth or sixth decade of a hard life. He was mostly bald, with a brown-grey beard and heavily lined skin. His eyes had the yellow tint of long-term heavy drinking, and his hands were not particularly steady. Sam hoped bleakly that he didn’t have anything that would require surgery. 

“Sorry doc,” said Dean, as genuinely respectful as Sam had ever heard him. “My buddy here needs some medical attention.” 

“What’s wrong with you?” The doctor – apparently – squinted at Sam, getting right to the point. 

“Uh – I’ve been sick,” Sam stammered: “Throwing up. And uh, diarrhea.” 

“Blood?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Well are you gonna stand there all day?”

It took Sam a second to process that this last was not a medical question, but an invitation to enter the house. Inside it was as ramshackle as its owner. Every surface was littered with books, papers and an odd assortment of medical instruments, ranging from modern to alarmingly archaic. A thick coating of dust lay on everything, and the morning light through the uncovered windowpane barely pierced the gloom. It smelled like alcohol and mold. 

“Get up on here,” said the doctor, removing a few miscellaneous objects from a sturdy-looking table. Sam did so. The doctor asked him more questions, felt his stomach and abdomen with hands that obviously knew what they were doing. He checked his temperature on an old-fashioned thermometer but didn’t see fit to share it. To distract himself, Sam watched Dean, who was watching him in turn from the corner of his eye, while investigating the crowded room and trying to look casual. 

“Well,” said the doctor finally, now thoughtful and engaged, “To be frank, your symptoms could be caused by a whole bunch of crap. Top of the list would be campylobacter – see a hell of a lot of it out here – we can get you on quinolone for that – you too as a precaution,” he addressed Dean. 

“What the hell is cam –cam-” Dean asked. 

“Food poisoning, typically from meat.” 

“But we eat the same stuff!” 

“Could be you’re more resistant or only one part of the meat was infected. Or it could be a virus or parasite from something else entirely. Any case, without a lab, all I can do is put you on a broad spectrum antibiotic. If it’s viral that won’t do shit – but all you can do with a virus out here is wait it out in any case. I got rehydration supplies in the kitchen. If you ain’t died yet you probably ain’t gonna.” The older man straightened with effort. 

“Um, thanks,” Sam said, pulling his shirt down. 

“Hell don’t thank me boy,” a flash of profound regret crossed the doctor’s face. “There’s a lot more I’d be doin if I had the equipment. You,” he addressed Dean: “Go on into the kitchen. Rehydration sachets in the cupboard under the sink – bring me one and the stuff to make it up. Middle cupboard over the counter, top shelf, get the pill bottle with the green cap. Take one yourself and then bring it here.” 

Dean went without protest. Sam understood – there was something quietly impressive about the old doctor, yellowed eyes and all. Once Sam was dosed, rehydrated and settled on a relatively clean couch, the doctor announced that he was ‘going the hell back to bed’ and not to wake him unless it really was an emergency. Sam fell asleep almost immediately, comforted by Dean’s presence near his head, and when he woke up it was proper morning, and the room was empty.   
He felt – better. Weak, and nauseous, but there were no cramping pains in his stomach right now. A pitcher of water was placed on the table near his head, with a clean plastic cup next to it. While he was drinking, Dean re-entered from the hallway, wiping vegetable peelings off his hands. 

“Who’s the wife now?” Sam’s voice sounded weak to his own ears, but Dean’s face lit up and he grinned at the tease. 

“You look better.” 

“I feel better. I mean, still like shit,” he could admit it now, “But better.” 

If it wasn’t for the danger of infection, Dean would have kissed him then – he wasn’t very good at expressing emotion verbally – so he did the next best thing and messed up Sam’s hair, letting his hand linger at the back of Sam’s neck. 

“You should take another pill now,” Dean said.

After swallowing, Sam took a more thorough look at his surroundings. Now that he didn’t feel like imminent death, he was curious. The books that covered every surface were largely medical, the rest a miscellaneous assortment from astronomy to politics. A few titles Sam recalled from his college days – classic titles of Church and State dogma. “So this doctor guy….” He left the question open as a general request for information. 

“His name’s Bobby Singer,” Dean said. “Defected from the State about thirty years ago.” 

“Why?” Sam asked.

Dean looked uncomfortable. He clearly felt it wasn’t his to tell, but had difficulty denying Sam anything. 

“His wife,” he said in a low, quiet voice, “She was Resistance. Undercover. He didn’t know. One day the troops came for her. They were gonna take her away and – well, do what they do. She asked him to kill her with one bullet. So he did.” 

Sam was silent. 

“She must have…trusted him,” he said at last. He would’ve liked to say loved, but who knew? 

“Yeah,” Dean said. He cleared his throat. “So, you’re not goin anywhere for a while. I fixed you and Bobby some stew for later if you’re up to it – I’m not leaving the stove on so you got to heat it up again. I’m gonna go into town, see a few people, maybe do some trade.” 

“You mean you aren’t gonna wait faithfully by my bedside?” Sam mock-pouted.

Dean made a dry face. “You don’t need me, you got books.” Then he added: “I won’t be long.”   
Sam thought of something. “You took me to a doctor you don’t trust to turn a stove off.” 

“Beggars can’t be choosers, Sammy. Besides, he fixed you up, didn’t he? Bobby remembers how to practice medicine. It’s just…other stuff he forgets.” 

“Alright. Be careful. You’re unarmed.” 

Dean saluted and headed out of the room. Sam lay back and closed his eyes. He really, really wanted a shower. The last time he’d properly bathed was that river about three days ago, and that was before all the grossness of illness. He must stink. But he didn’t feel particularly up to standing under water, even assuming the doctor had the facilities. He dozed some more.   
Movement woke him. Heavy, slightly uneven footsteps were making their way down the stairs. Unaccountably nervous, and feeling the need to be presentable and more coherent than last night, Sam sat up and pushed the blanket into his lap.

“Good morning,” he said. 

The doctor peered around the door. He cast an eye over Sam and grunted. Then he disappeared again. Sam blinked, disconcerted, but then he heard sounds from the kitchen, and the doctor reappeared a moment later, holding a mug. Sam glimpsed the liquid inside – it was black as tar. 

“You look better,” the doctor said in an unconscious echo of Dean. “No caffeine though.” He took a seat at his cluttered table and gulped some coffee. Sam didn’t say it, but the sharp aroma of coffee grounds was turning his stomach in any case. 

“So uh…is there anything we can do to thank you?” Sam asked. “For helping us.” 

The doctor dismissed the question with a gesture. “Got everything I need here.” 

“Oh.” 

A long pause. The older man stared into space. 

“So er…” Sam cleared his throat. “Have you known Dean long?” 

“Look son,” said the old man, and turned his gaze to Sam. The bleakness in his eyes made Sam’s breath catch. “There ain’t no need for small talk on my account. You just focus on gettin’ well so you can get outta this town. You want somethin’ to read, help yourself.” He gestured vaguely around the room. 

“Okay,” said Sam, feeling somehow chastised. “Um, just one question.” 

“What?” 

“Where’s the bathroom?” 

* * * 

Dean returned at midday and they ate lunch together. Sam managed some of the broth from the stew and felt stronger for it. The doctor retreated to his bedroom, not bothering to hide the fact he was taking a couple of bottles. Sam didn’t want to lie on the couch again. Behind the doctor’s property was a small lot with a few broken-down vehicles. Dean had asked over stew if the doctor wanted him to look at any of them, but Singer had replied: 

“Hell no. what am I gonna do with a car, for Godssake. You want to scavenge for parts go right ahead.” 

So Dean did. What they couldn’t use they could certainly barter. He brought out an armchair for Sam, who sat and watched him, dozing occasionally. Dean whistled as he worked. Sam reflected that it took very little to make Dean happy. His eyes slipped closed. At some point during the day, a woman approached the house, clutching a young girl by the hand. One of the girl’s eyes was inflamed and watering. She looked shocked to see Sam and Dean on the property, and stopped abruptly. 

“Is the doctor – uh -…?” 

“Still alive,” said Dean with a wry grin, and nodded towards the house. “Awake is another question.” 

The woman regarded them warily. 

“Who are you?” said the girl. 

“Laura,” said the woman sharply, and tugged her towards the house. Later on, a man with a lame leg made a similar request. Sam was surprised that they didn’t see more traffic, given how much sickness and violent injury one usually saw in the Ghost towns. He said so. Dean gave him one of those looks, those sidelong glances that meant Sam had just said something naïve, and Sam raised his eyebrows. 

“Not everyone wants to live with a major wound in a place like this,” Dean said, and let Sam draw his own conclusions. 

They slept in the living room again. Dean spread a blanket on the floor, and Sam wished there were room on the couch for both of them. In the morning, he felt better still, and asked Dean if there was a shower on the property. 

“More of a trickle than a shower,” said Dean. “I’ll help you.” 

“What about…?” Sam cast his eyes towards the ceiling. If Singer had been State, it was anyone’s guess how he would feel about the nature of their relationship. 

“He won’t be up for a while,” Dean said. 

“Would he mind?” 

“No idea.” 

They took their time in the shower, though keeping an ear out for sounds from the rest of the house. It wasn’t difficult, as the shower was truly nothing more than a weak stream. It was also cold. But any kind of running water was a luxury in the Ghost towns, and being able to share it was – special. They still didn’t kiss – too risky. But Dean’s hands were comfort and reassurance. Sam was still too tired to be aroused. 

Singer roused himself in the late morning, which seemed to be the time he was most alert. Dean said he would go into town again. Sam amused himself by picking up a book and reading the first few pages before his concentration drifted and he changed it. After an hour or so Singer wandered in. “You taking the pills?” he asked gruffly. 

“Yes sir,” said Sam. 

Singer snorted. “Bobby.” 

“Sam.” Sam attempted to recall if he’d actually introduced himself over the past two days. He didn’t think so. The old man nodded. He looked, perhaps, vaguely satisfied. He sat himself at the table and started to leaf through one of his books. Sam was bored. He considered trying a second time to make conversation, but was interrupted by an urgent knock at the door. He sat up. Singer pushed himself up, using the flat of his hands against the table. Sam heard the door open from the hallway, then a woman’s voice carried: 

“Bobby, you better come into the town. Your dumb pretty friend just went and made himself a hero.” 

* * * 

When Lilith was a little girl, she met the Mothers of the Revolution. She couldn’t have been more than five, but she remembered the visit with the clarity of an all-important memory. The Mothers were glowing and powerful and big, their bellies huge and round, because inside they were growing the Special Children. They came to see the girls at the home because one day, if they were very lucky, some of those little girls might grow up to be Mothers also. Mother Mary had been blonde and blue-eyed, and Lilith touched her fine pale hair with a new sense of pride. The other children in the Home sometimes made fun of her, because she was so pale, as pale as the snow that spread forever outside the compounds. 

“Hello, what’s your name?” Mother Mary had asked her, smiling down from her great height. 

“Lily,” Lilith said shyly. Mother Mary extended her hand and they shook, solemnly. 

“What a pretty name. Are you a good girl, Lily?” 

“Yes.” Then impulsively: “Mother Mary, what will your child be like?” 

The Mother continued to smile at her, but if she had replied, her answer was lost to Lilith’s memory. 

When she was thirteen, and at last, the day came, with victorious pains in her belly and the first traces of dark blood in her panties, Lilith proudly reported to the lab. She squirmed with excitement on the hard chair in the waiting room, anxious for her results – she was sure, in her heart, that she was destined to be one of them, she loved the Resistance so much, and she was fit, and strong, and what else was her life for if not this? (And then, he would know her, and love her for what she had done with the cause, and together they would be the Father and Mother of the Revolution). When the doctor came out, she looked up, expectant, so sure of what she would hear:

“Sorry Lilith,” said the short man blandly. “Your DNA isn’t suitable for the scheme.” 

“What?” 

Her jaw dropped. She actually felt it. 

“Don’t worry, there’s nothing wrong with you,” said the doctor mildly. “You’re just not what we’re looking for.” 

“Wh – what can I do?” her mind was racing. Was there something she could take? Alter herself? 

“Do?” the doctor blinked. “Nothing. Only five percent of viable females are suitable for this scheme, dear. It’s no reflection on you. The Resistance will need you in other ways.” And he dropped his eyes to his clipboard. 

The first devastation wore off, after a time, but the resentment was always there. Throughout the years, her faith in the Messiah waxed and waned – when the Children went crazy or died in infancy, scepticism reared its head, but Nick was so convinced and his conviction was so beautiful she believed again, and with belief came jealous pain. Mary – the defector – was an object of hatred to her now, that woman she had idolized so fiercely. 

“How could she leave?” she asked Nick one night. “If it was true.” 

He shrugged. “She was insane. She put her needs before those of the collective.” 

“What if the child is insane too?” Lilith sat up abruptly. 

Nick was silent. At last: “We need his abilities more than his sanity. And of course his symbolic value.” 

“I wish….” 

“What?” 

“I wish we could just make another one. Or even like, pretend. If people want symbolic value, construct a figurehead and pretend he has powers.” She was looking at Nick. Nick laughed. 

“I am many things, Lily, but I’m not a liar. Imagine the damage if I deceived people and then they found out the truth.” 

“I hate traitors,” she said passionately. “I like to kill them.” 

“We all do,” he said mildly.


	3. Chapter 3

“You just stay put,” said Singer, shuffling rapidly back into the living room and pointing a finger at Sam. Sam sat up, blinking.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“That’s what I’m gonna find out.” Singer went to the table and started digging around haphazardly until he unearthed a battered wallet. He stuffed it in the back pocket of his trousers. A woman appeared in the doorway. She was fortyish, fit-looking with long brown hair pulled back in hasty ponytail. A pistol was sheathed at her hip, and fine lines creased the corners of her mouth. There was something military in her stance, and her eyes flicked over Sam warily. He offered his name.

“Jody,” she returned with a brief nod.

“Is Dean okay?”

She snorted. “Fine. About to be decorated and forcibly detained as a guard by the townsfolk, but fine.”

“What did he do?”

She just looked at him.

“Let’s go Jody,” said Singer. “I’m sure he’ll fill you in when he gets back,” he added to Sam. They left without further ceremony. Sam blinked and stared at the ceiling. Well, he felt useless. There was literally nothing he could do but wait, and it must have been an hour at least before Bobby and Jody returned, dragging an abashed and grumbling Dean with them.

“What did you do?” Sam demanded.

“Nothing much,” Dean shrugged. “Some dude had a bomb strapped to his chest in the town center. Totally obvious. I took him out before he could ignite it and defused the sucker.”

Sam gaped: “Why?”

“State spy thinking there’s Resistance here, or vice versa,” Jody shrugged. “Or just some poor Ghost bastard gone over the edge. Any case, it was a pretty impressive show.” She looked sideways at Dean.

“They wouldn’t let me leave,” Dean grumbled. “Bobby literally had to come drag me out of there.”

“Congrats, you’re an honorary citizen,” said Bobby dryly.

Sam remembered what Jody had said to him earlier. “They want you to stay,” he said.  
“Think we gotta sneak away by night, Sammy,” Dean snorted. “Soon as you’re up to it.”

“I’m up to it,” Sam lied.

“I’ll help you,” Jody volunteered. “My shift at the Gate starts at midnight. Come by shortly after.”

Before retiring, Bobby handed over a the rest of the bottle of green pills. “Keep hydrated, and take it easy until the symptoms are gone,” he instructed.

“Thank you again,” Sam said.

“You’re lucky,” Singer dismissed. “There’s a lot more I can’t fix out here than what I can.” He didn’t say anything else, such as ‘lock the door when you leave’, before retiring.

“Dean,” said Sam after dark.

“Mmmph?”

“Are you listening?”

“Mmmph.”

“We should leave Bobby a way to contact us.”

Dean sat up. The whites of his eyes were eerie in the dark. “He doesn’t want anything from us, Sam.”

“No but…just in case. He needs anything.”

Dean sighed. “You know I don’t like to keep a SIM in the phone.”

“But I could leave him a number. And I could put it in the phone and check it, sometimes. Just  
in case.”

Pause.

“Why?”

“I – like him Dean. I feel bad for him.”

“He doesn’t want your pity,” Dean said gruffly.

“You like him too.”

“Yeah I do. He’s a good guy.”

“I think he saved my life, Dean.”

Pause. Sam felt vaguely guilty at the manipulation, despite the fact he believed it.

“Alright,” Dean said. “If you want to. I got a new SIM in town.” He leaned over to rifle in his backpack, found the SIM and phone, inserted it and read the number off. Sam wrote the number in large bold font on a piece of paper with their initials next to it, and left it on the table for Bobby.

At 11.45 they locked the door behind them, and Dean slid the key back under it.

“I hope he notices that,” he remarked.

Jody met them at the Gate, but before she opened it, she seemed to consider Dean.

“You’re ex-Guard,” she said.

Dean sighed. “Is it still that obvious?”

“Maybe not to everyone.” She rolled up her sleeve and displayed a tattoo of a State rank and regiment number. Sam had a weird, abrupt flashback to the first time he’d met Dean. “I was a grunt,” Jody said, “In another life.”

Dean raised his eyebrows. “Is everybody in this town a State fugitive?”

“Seems to be a point of congregation.” She held his eyes.

“Hey,” Dean said: “Keep an eye on the old guy, would you?”

“I always do,” she said mildly. “Good luck.”

“You too,” Sam said. She saluted. They rode on into the night, the engine cutting the quiet.

 

* * *

 

Uneventfulness.

Sam finished the course of antibiotics, and felt his strength returning by the hour. He hadn’t been sick in a few days. The blood returned for a day but then vanished again, and though he still had the odd stomach pain and some lingering….issues….eliminating, most of the time he felt well now, just a little tired. He knew how improved he was when he woke in the middle of the night to find Dean jerking off and muttering his name (“It’s been a dry spell, Sammy, cut me some slack”) and felt arousal spike.

“Let me,” he said in a low voice, covering Dean’s hand with his own, and Dean’s grin answered his. He got only halfway hard himself despite a few careful efforts on Dean’s part, which he knew Dean felt bad about. So he put his hands on either side of Dean’s face and said,  
“You are the only person in the world who could get me even this far right now.”

Dean sighed. “I really – want to kiss you.”

“Couple more days,” Sam said. “We don’t want to undo the doctor’s work or anything.”

“Right.”

“Speaking of -…” Sam reached for Dean’s bag and inserted the SIM into the phone. Dean frowned. There were no messages or missed calls – they had returned the bike to Richie the previous day.

“I told you, he doesn’t want anything,” Dean shrugged.

“I suppose you’re right,” Sam said. He removed the SIM, lingering a moment, and put the phone to the bag.

It got hotter. By Sam’s reckoning, it was August now, and they stayed away from the towns except for the occasional trade run, utilizing water where they found it. Sam was warier of meat. He still ate it, but in smaller quantities, and roasted to almost char on the fire first. The teasing he expected didn’t come. One morning, as Sam sat and watched the dawn, a trail of dust announced a cavalcade in the distance. State vehicles droned across the horizon, seeming slow from the distance, and their dust and the exhaust they raised smeared the pinky sun. In those cars it would be air-conditioned, with bottled water in holders on the armrests. The occupants would have e-readers and telescreens in the chairs in front of them. Sam remembered these things, but he was starting to forget what they felt like. He didn’t know if he was happy – life was hard, and the work of survival was monotonous, but Dean still fascinated him every day, and the accomplishment of not yet being caught was something.  
Once a week, Sam checked the phone. For three weeks there was nothing. Dean clearly thought he should give it up, but didn’t say anything. On the fourth week the screen glowed to life, demanded a time and date, and Sam as usual entered 1/1/1111. Then it beeped and the screen displayed:

Twelve missed calls.

“Dean!” exclaimed Sam and showed him the phone.

“What the hell….that’s not Bobby’s number.”

“Maybe he got a new phone.” Sam’s finger was already moving towards redial.

“Hey!” Dean yanked the phone off him. “What are you doing?”

“Dean!” Sam exclaimed for the second time, “Bobby could be in trouble!”

“Sammy, listen to me,” Dean said seriously, “He wouldn’t have got a new phone, okay? If someone else has this number they got it from him. If State troops caught up they’d search his house. You saw – he’s got some useful stuff. They’d call this number in the hope of tracking down accomplices.”

“Twelve times?”

Our names aren’t exactly unknown in the State, not when you put them together.”

“I only put our initials, Dean. I’m not stupid.”

They glared at each other.

“It’s too risky,” Dean said after a pause.

“It’s dishonorable not to try,” Sam retorted.

Dean snorted. “I’ll live with it.”

Sam was about to say something to that – what exactly he wasn’t sure – when the phone rang in Dean’s hand, startling them both. It was the same number.

“Give it to me,” Sam challenged.

Dean’s finger hovered over reject.

“Give it to me or I swear to God Dean…” It was a threat. Sam was no physical danger to Dean even now, though the gap was lessening, and they both knew he wasn’t about to leave him. It meant, I swear to God this is important to me, that if you don’t let me do it, it will damage something between us, and maybe I will love you a little bit less.

Dean gave him the phone.

“Hello?”

“Sam?” The voice was female. “Thank God. I’ve been trying to reach you….”

Recognition clicked into place, though the rapid, stressed tones were a far cry from the composed woman he remembered.

“Jody?”

“Yeah. Let me talk to Dean.”

“What’s happening? What’s wrong?” Dean was gesturing for the phone, but Sam kept it and  
pressed the speaker button.

“Bobby’s in trouble. We all are,” Jody said. “State put something in the water supply. They’re testing it. Guess they knew we had relatively efficient water works.”

“What is it?” she seemed to require the prompt to get her thoughts in order.

“A weapon. Chemical. Guess what, it works,” a bitter laugh. “People are dying.”

“Is Bobby—-” Dean asked sharply.

“He’s alive,” she cut him off. “Sick though. Lot of people are. So far no-one’s recovered.”

“I’m guessing you have an emergency water supply,” Dean said. He was scowling and his voice had gone hard and rapid, and Sam reluctantly handed the phone over. “Otherwise we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

“Some,” Jody said. “Tanks segregated from the reservoir. But we’re running out.”

“How do you know it’s the State?”

“Cavalcade passed by last week, and a couple of their goons were hanging around the reservoir.”

“Alright,” Dean blew his breath out. “They must have an antidote. They wouldn’t risk handling  
it otherwise. The nearest State base is about forty miles south of you. That must be where they’re cooking it.”

“You…don’t have to,” Sam could hear how it pained her to say it. “It’s just, if anyone has a chance.”

“We won’t risk our lives,” Dean said shortly, which was a lie: they were risking their lives by approaching State property. “We’ll go in, see what we can see, and if we can grab the specs for the antidote we’ll grab them. If we can’t we’ll get the hell out of there.”

“I can get you plans,” Jody said quickly, and was it Sam’s imagination, or did he hear a human moan in the background? “I got a contact who was stationed there. They could be outdated, but…”

“Better than nothing,” Dean said. “Get them. How soon can you get to the railroad crossing?”

“Give me two hours,” she said. Then she paused. “I….”

“What?”

“I would come,” her tone was regretful. “But I’m barely holding this place together right now. People are looking to me.”

“It’s a stealth mission,” Dean said. “Either we can sneak the specs or we can’t. One more person ain’t gonna change that. See you in two hours.”

“Two hours,” she confirmed. “Thank you.”

Dean clicked the phone off. “Fuck,” he cursed. “See this is why…”

“Why what?” Sam demanded. His heart was pounding in his chest. It had been a long time since they’d made any kind of strike against the State, and they hadn’t talked about it, and part of him felt alive and awake at the thought of doing something.

“Why we shouldn’t get involved with people,” Dean said.

“You took me there so they could save me,” Sam glared.

“I know, I know, and of course I’d do it again,” Dean placated. “It’s just – God, why can’t shit just leave us alone? We must be the unluckiest sons of bitches in the New World Order. Us and Bobby Singer,” he shook his head.

“I wouldn’t trade it,” Sam said stubbornly.

“Not saying I would either,” Dean sighed. “Let’s move. It’s an hour and a half hike at least and I’d rather wait at the railroad crossing than here.”


	4. Chapter 4

Jody had aged years in the weeks since they’d seen her. The lines of her face were heavily pronounced and her eyes were sunken with exhaustion. A Ghost Sam had never seen accompanied her.

“Thank you,” was the first thing she said upon seeing them.

“Don’t thank us yet,” said Dean.

“I got the plans.” She unfolded a sheet of worn paper. A hand-drawn plan showed a two-storey base, exits and entrances marked. The control room and laboratory were labelled, as well as the locations of security cameras. “This is five years old,” Jody said as they took it:  
“Don’t rely on it.”

“How’s Bobby?” asked Sam.

“Hanging in there.”

“Does he…is he…?”

“It’s bad,” she met his eyes. “No two ways about it. They get high fevers, muscle spasms, respiratory distress. Inflammation and blisters all over their bodies. Seems like their throats close up and they choke at the end. Some die within minutes of drinking the water – others hold out for days.”

What answer was there to that?

“About half the town’s infected,” she went on. “Small mercies – it doesn’t seem to be transferred by contact.”

Dean slipped his backpack off and started to unload some of the heavier items, including the tent poles. Sam did likewise.

“Look after these,” Dean instructed the Ghosts, “Got no more transport, but if we strip our supplies to a minimum we can hike it by tonight.”

She nodded, and with her partner accepted the burden.

“We’ll call you as soon as we have anything,” Sam said. He didn’t add, or don’t. The Ghosts nodded in thanks and they parted ways.

* * *

Lilith’s footsteps echoed hollowly in the deserted hallway. In such sensitive operations, a skeleton crew was maintained were possible, and on the night shifts, the Base was eerily silent and still. Yellow bar lights ran the length of the alcoves above her head, casting her shadow behind her as she came to the doors to the laboratory with their hazard warnings, their notices of no access except by authorization. She placed her palm against a small flat screen at the side of the door, and her long-fingered handprint appeared briefly in glowing lines. A digital lens the size of a coin descended by wire, stopped near her eye, whirred and clicked quietly. Letters appeared in red:

IDENTIFICATION: BASE COMMANDER.

ACCESS GRANTED.

Lilith schooled the tiny smile from her face at the acknowledgement of her new rank, and the door slid open. The two scientists still at work quickly straightened and saluted, and she felt a frisson of satisfaction at the fear in their faces. If there was one thing she had learned in her rapid rise, it was that things went far, far better when you kept them scared.

“Jacobs, report,” she ordered.

“I, uh, we think you’ll be pleased, Commander,” said the thin man nervously. “Initial reports are largely positive.”

“Largely?” She blinked, an expression of false sweetness in her blue eyes. Jacobs quailed.

“Approximately forty percent of the exposed died on contact with Leviathan.”

“Forty percent….” Lilith frowned, and pretended to consider. “Now I’m no mathematician, Jacobs, so forgive me if I’m wrong, but it seems to me that a forty percent success rate would entail a sixty percent rate of failure. Now tell me why I would be pleased with that?”

“More died later,” said Jacobs quickly. “It’s a work in progress, Commander.”

“Yes it is,” her gaze travelled from Jacobs to his colleague, an equally frightened looking woman at a computer. “See that there is progress by tomorrow, both of you. There’s nothing I hate more than…inefficiency. ” She raised her eyebrows and exited” as they saluted and mumbled their assent.

Lilith headed for the main gates. It was 02.00, and she would retire soon for at least a few hours sleep, but first she’d breathe a little non-recycled air and take a look at the sky. The small smile dropped from her face when she saw who was waiting at the entrance.

“Commander.” His voice could make even her title sound like an insult.

“Crowley.” She returned the salutation with equal unpleasantness. His gaze lingered a beat too long, a shade too insolently on her. He took a last puff of his cigarette, then dropped it and ground it into the dirt. “Aren’t you on guard duty, comrade?”

“All quiet on the Western front,” he smirked.

“Good.” Damn him. He was the only one on the base who could throw her composure, the only one she had failed to intimidate.

“So,” he said lazily, “How’s tricks?”

“Excuse me?”

“New position…new base…new staff…it’s a lot for a young thing like you.” He lit up again and offered her a cigarette.

“I don’t smoke.”

“Good for you.”

“And I’ll thank you to address me with decorum.” She could just have punished him. But it wasn’t that simple. Crowley was technically her second-in-command and answered to her, but he was charismatic, connected. The troops were loyal to him, and she was new here. He had never disobeyed an order. The Revolutionary Council liked him better than her, and her greatest supporter was dead.

“Just making conversation.” He blew out smoke. Lilith gave up on the prospect of fresh air.

“I’m going to bed,” she told him. “You’re in command until 0700”.

“Sleep well commander,” he said mildly. She narrowed her eyes.

* * *

“That’s it.” Dean looked out over the flats to the huddle of buildings in the distance. He glanced down to the map Sam was holding out, his finger on their position. “We need to follow the tree cover down to this side. Closer to the laboratories. If we can get near enough to take out the guard at this tower,” he pointed, “We can make for this door. If an alarm sounds, we run.”

Sam nodded. Getting killed, after all, was a lose–lose proposition: they die, and nobody gets an antidote. They moved silently through the forest until the eastern side of the compound was on their right. As close as they dared to the edge of the treeline, the guard tower was in their sight. From their packs, Dean assembled a sniper rifle and suppressor. Sam held himself still and silent as Dean sighted. At moments like this Sam felt profoundly the difference in their abilities. He’d learned a lot, but he’d never be the soldier Dean was. The muted pop was still alarmingly loud in their eyes, and Sam gritted his teeth, watching the guard slump and collapse in the tower, red spraying the wall behind him.

Nothing happened.

“One down,” Dean murmured, repacking the weapon, passing Sam a small automatic revolver and taking up his own. They were also armed with thin-bladed knives – on occasion, a blade could give you the advantage in close combat against a less athletic opponent armed only with a gun. A bullet didn’t always kill or even disable – a slit throat did every time.  
They moved out from the trees and down the slope towards the wire fence of the camp. A sensor blinked and moved in their direction. They ducked. Dean opened a hole in the fence with a pair of small wire cutters, at the point where the fence was closest to the brick wall of the building. They slipped through onto enemy ground. They pressed themselves against the wall and moved towards the door.

* * *

Crowley sat with his feet on the desk and a glass of whiskey in one hand, a wall of CCTV screens in front of him. To the casual viewer, he was the picture of relaxation. Yet his alert dark eyes moved from screen to screen with the calm intensity of a rattlesnake. Labs. Kitchens. Armory. Perimeter. Bunks. Corridors. Back to labs. The base devoted to chemical research was deliberately small and basic, strategically set in the middle of nowhere so that if these scientist types did manage to blow themselves to kingdom come, they wouldn’t take too many troops with them. Crowley scowled, swirling the glass in one hand. It was a mug’s assignment, an easy place to get Combat Barbie out of the way without pissing off Prometheus’s old contingent, and he knew Alistair was responsible for sticking him with this interminable bore. Smarmy bastard. He’d be taking full advantage of the power vacuum at HQ – him and Old Yellow Eyes were like two dogs with a bone between them, both more concerned with personal glory than the end game. Not that Crowley could fault them there. Personal glory was his end game. Failing that, personal survival. One thing you could say for poor old Nicky – he’d believed the myths. He’d been in it for the cause, not for himself. He was a romantic fool, but Crowley had liked him.

A shadow caught his eye. Just a flicker, at the corner of one of the perimeter screens. He frowned. Leaning forward, he pressed the button for playback. Yes, there it was. Could be nothing. Could be something. He pressed a button on his communicator.

“Lieutenant Kerr,” he said lightly.

“Sir?”

“Make a survey of the eastern perimeter if you’d be so kind. Take a few of the lads with you.”

“Sir.”

“Don’t disappoint me now.” Crowley clicked off the communicator, drained his glass, and removed his feet from the desk.

* * *

The door code Jody’s contact had provided was, of course, obsolete. Their only option was to dissemble the electronic lock. Sam set to work on it – in his State days, he had known an eccentric genius who’d taught him the art of picking these, in addition to other illegal skills. He never thought he’d be so grateful. The door opened with a quiet click and they crossed the threshold.

* * *

“Sir,” Crowley’s communicator crackled to life. “Carson is dead. We have a breach. Repeat, man down, we have a breach.”

* * *

The lock to the lab was more complex, and in any case, there was no longer any point in stealth. Sirens screamed down the corridor and the base came to life, footsteps running from all directions. Sam smashed the lock with the butt of his gun.

Dean said, “hi,” to the scientists, then shot them both dead with a bullet between the eyes before they had time to scream. Sam raced to the computer, shoving the warm body out of the way and ignoring the sick feeling of dead flesh and dead weight. Dean produced a thin steel bar from his backpack and pushed it through the bolt holes on their side of the closed door.

“The classics are still effective,” he remarked as someone banged on the other side of the door, shouts and thundering footsteps.

“Get the laser,” Someone roared, and Dean said,

“Hurry up, Sammy.”

Sam inserted a USB stick and clicked ‘select all’ to transfer, while frantically searching for anything that could narrow the files down. He found a subfolder called ‘weapons’ and clicked to copy that instead, praying it wasn’t some kind of decoy. The transfer time jumped from 40% to 80% complete. A blue laser light appeared in the doorway and Dean ducked, just as it sliced through the steel bar.

“Let’s go!” yelled Dean and raced across the room to the back window, which Sam smashed as soon as he’d grabbed the USB stick from the port. They dashed to the window and Dean shoved Sam through first – Sam shot a guard who was waiting on the opposite side, barely feeling the burn of an answering bullet ripping past his shoulder as he dropped the few feet to the ground. Dean was a split second behind him and they both pressed flat to the dirt to escape the hail of bullets following them from the building — Dean knifed another soldier at close quarters even as he shot a third. More guards were coming at them from outside the building now, but somehow, whatever combination of skill, ruthlessness and luck had brought Dean from grunt to Elite Guard to exile kicked in and they cut a path through the troops. Sam just kept firing. They flung themselves at the fence, no time for cutting, scrabbled to the top with bullets still whizzing behind them and the wire knifing their hands. From there it was an open sprint to the cover of the trees, but once they had made that, Sam knew with the quiet surety he sometimes got about things that they would make it out with their lives.

* * *

“You’re bleeding.” He touched Dean’s face.

“So are you,” Dean nodded to Sam’s arm.

Sam laughed disbelievingly. “We’re so dumb.”

“We’re fucking awesome,” Dean grinned. “Damn, that was fun.”

Crouched in a dell at the side of the wooded path, they watched the troops from the base pass them, lose them, and eventually double back. They weren’t ready to risk moving yet – it hadn’t been quiet long enough. Sam felt crazy, exhilarated – and he realized with a jolt that he’d missed the feeling. He wanted to ask if Dean had, too, but he didn’t, because he didn’t know what he wanted the answer to be.

They waited.

“We should go,” Dean said.

“Is it safe?”

Dean looked at him. Sam frowned, something jabbing at him. “I don’t – I’m not-….”

“What do you think?” Dean asked. Not can you see, nothing so strange or dangerous.

“I think it’s safe,” Sam said carefully. They moved.

* * *

“Oh God.”

Jody was haggard. The twenty-four hours since they’d met at this same crossing had weighed heavily on her. Bobby was still alive, she told them, but wouldn’t say more than that.  
“I don’t know if the antidote’s on there.” Sam hated to say it as he placed the USB stick in her hands. “I just downloaded whatever looked likely in the time we had.”

“It will be,” Jody said determinedly. Her eyes were rimmed with red.

“You – how did you…?” her formerly silent partner was staring at them with something like awe.

“I used to be a Guard,” Dean said shortly. “The base was manned by grunts. Sam is good. We got lucky.”

“Right….” The man stared at them. Something was passing behind his eyes, unreadable, uneasy.

“Take it,” Sam suddenly wanted to be gone, and closed Jody’s hand around the USB. “I hope you can use it.”

“We have to move, Sammy,” Dean said bluntly. “We’re on the cameras. We really need to disappear for a while. Don’t call us,” he said to Jody. Then: “For at least a month.”

“Right, right.” She was still staring at the USB stick like she expected it to disappear, but Sam felt her partner’s eyes on their backs all the way to the horizon.


	5. Chapter 5

In a ramshackle cabin at the edge of town a small, bearded man with pale blue eyes sat bolt upright in bed. This was not an unusual occurrence – the man suffered from nightmares, which ended as abruptly and painfully and they came upon him, but this particular morning the cause of alarm was something entirely different. Someone was pounding at his door, and calling,

“CHUCK!”

“Hoooly crap,” he breathed, running a hand through his curly hair and trying to calm himself. “Coming!” Grabbing a ratty dressing gown – the only item he’d kept from his Resistance days – he wrapped it around himself tightly and stumbled to the door.

“Yeah?” Chuck kept his arms folded across his chest.

“I met them,” said O’Neill.

“Met…who?”

“Sam and Dean! Chuck, they’re real!”

“Good for you.” Chuck started to close the door. O’Neill caught it with his foot. 

“Listen,” he demanded. “I’m not drunk, and I’m not insane. It came true.”

“What…what now?” Chuck blinked. The sun was extremely bright.

“Your vision!” the guard was highly agitated: “About the antidote! How they would break in and steal it, the ones who are going to save us! They brought the antidote.”

“Woah, woah, woah, just, dude, calm down.” Chuck leaned against the doorframe. He needed a drink. Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew it was terribly early to need a drink. He couldn’t bring himself to care. “I don’t have visions. I have dreams. I write them down to make them go away. I’m a dud, remember?” Unconsciously, he ran one hand over the back of the other, tracing the burn scars. He wished once again that people wouldn’t insist on hearing his dreams, but once word of his past got out, it was inevitable. He wasn’t creative enough to invent a sufficiently satisfying narrative, so he told them. The heroic adventures of two people far better than Chuck would ever be. It seemed to give people hope, and until today, he’d supposed it was harmless.

“No,” O’Neill said. “Chuck, listen. Sam and Dean exist. Jody knows them. Last night, they broke into the State base and downloaded the antidote specs to a USB port. It’s simple!   
Singer had the stuff. Has,” he corrected himself: “Has the stuff.” Chuck found himself quietly heartened to hear the old doctor was still alive.

“That’s…great. About the antidote. But whoever got it, they’re not Sam and Dean. Sam and Dean aren’t real.”

“You’re a Seer.” 

“I was _supposed to be_. My effectiveness was graded nil.” He ran his hand over the scar again, fingers tracing the point where it disappeared up his sleeve. Chuck closed his eyes briefly. A headache was building steadily behind his eyes, and all he really wanted to do was lie down in a dark room again.

“So what – what happens next?” The guard clearly wasn’t taking _I’m a dud_ for an answer.

“Next I go back to bed,” Chuck said. “Probably best to lie low for a few days until the antidote’s – you know – widespread.”

“It’s not human-contagious.”

“I’m a coward,” Chuck reminded him, “I don’t take chances.” He closed the door in O’Neill’s face, feeling slightly mean, but remembering he still had half a bottle of bad whiskey under the couch shoved the feeling away.

* * *

The adventure of the antidote had awoken something in Sam. He felt restless, dissatisfied with the routines that had seemed so satisfactory a few short months ago. Sometimes he had strange dreams – dreams of a high place, like a fortress, on a flat promontory stretching into a restless ocean. He had never seen the ocean, only images, yet he felt like he knew the place – he belonged. He was there, but also watching from outside, and it filled him with excitement and anticipation.

“Have you ever seen the ocean?” he asked Dean from the depths of his sleeping bag.

“Yeah. Couple of times.”

“Did you like it?”

Dean shrugged. He was occupied with sharpening one of his hunting knives to a fine point and not in the mood to talk. Moonlight through the walls of the tent lit his profile softly. He looked younger at night, Sam often thought.

“Was it frightening?”

Dean stopped and looked at him. “I was part of a unit storming a major Resistance compound at the time, Sam. The General had a reputation for some pretty creative forms of torture. It wasn’t my main concern.”

“Al _right,_ no need to be a dick about it.” Dean made a face.

“You ever think about the State?” Sam tried next.

“When I have to.”

“I do. Sometimes I think about the people I knew, you know? Not the army. People at college. I wonder what they’re doing now. If they think about me.”

Something passed over Dean’s face, unhappy, almost fearful, gone as fast as it was there. He put down the knife and grinned cockily, reaching for Sam.

“I think about you,” he said, somehow managing to make it sound totally filthy. Sam rolled his eyes. Dean cupped his face and started kissing him, intently, almost business-like. ‘Less talking more screwing’, Sam thought a little meanly, ‘Typical’. But his body was already starting to respond, primed to react to Dean, who slipped a hand quickly into his trousers and cupped him, tugging gently. Sam let out a surprised sound into Dean’s mouth. Not that he was protesting, but Dean wasn’t usually in this much of a hurry.

“Want to fuck me?” Dean breathed against his ear.

“Yeah,” Sam gulped. He loved fucking Dean, but rarely did: Sam always waited for Dean to ask, ever since that one bad miscommunication when, proud of his new strength, he decided to try being more aggressive, and Dean hadn’t been expecting it. Something sharp and fast had come over him – he’d grabbed Sam’s wrist, twisted his arm behind him so hard it hurt, pulled him off and dropped him on the ground. “No,” he’d said, gotten into his sleeping bag and turned his back for the rest of the night, and Sam was left to wonder about all the things he still didn’t know about Dean and probably never would. 

Now, Dean used his other hand to pull Sam’s pants off and Sam returned the favor, touching lightly in the places he knew his partner to be most sensitive. He ran his fingers down the base of Dean’s spine and lower, seeking entrance, and Dean tipped his head back and closed his eyes. Sam didn’t like it when Dean closed his eyes during sex. It made him harder to read. He told himself to stop thinking, stop over-analysing and just be in the moment. With his free hand he reached for his backpack and rummaged until he found the end of a tube of lubricant – Dean’s eyelids fluttered a the first touch of cold gel on hot skin but he didn’t open them. Sam coated both of them and Dean turned his face away, offering his body, and it had been too long, and Sam was soon lost in the rhythms and demands of his body. He knew he was being selfish, but Dean didn’t seem to mind, if the noises he made were any indication. Sam came fast, surprising himself, jerking forwards onto Dean, who steadied him. Apologetic, he reached around, to find Dean only half-ready:

“Sorry,” he whispered.

“It’s okay.” Dean covered Sam’s hand with his and they finished him together. Afterwards they lay down.

“I love you,” Sam said.

“Love you too.” 

“Are you okay?”

“Sure. Why wouldn’t I be? I just came.”

“Not very…” Sam bit off the rest.

“I asked you to fuck me, didn’t I?”

“Yeah.” Sam’s eyes started to close.

“Go to sleep, everything’s fine,” Dean said.

Sam didn’t dream that night.

* * *

“Chuck!” 

Chuck froze in the middle of the market square, cringing. It wasn’t that he didn’t like Becky. Really. He liked her quite a lot. She was just so - energetic. Chuck was rarely energetic. He found it hard to keep up with her even in simple conversation.

“Have you heard?” The young blonde Ghost scurried up and grabbed his arm. 

“Hi, uh, Becky,” he said nervously, trying to extract his arm without upsetting his meagre bag of groceries. “How are you?”

“The virus is gone,” she said, wide-eyed. “Sam and Dean did it.”

“Becky, it wasn’t them,” Chuck sighed.

“When are they coming back? Did you have any more visions yet?”

“No.”

Her face fell.

“I…had a dream,” he relented. “It was pretty vague.”

“Let me help you with that,” she took one of the bags – the one containing his stash of toilet paper – from his left hand. “You can tell me about it on the way back to your place.”  
Chuck sighed again, but this time it wasn’t exactly frustration. It was rare to meet anyone, nowadays, with as much spirit as Becky. She’d be good for someone. Or something. If she’d just stop believing his stupid vis – nightmares and devote her energy to something useful.

“So?” she demanded, gesturing with her free hand for him to talk, staring intently up at his face as they walked side-by-side in the direction of his cabin.

“I dreamt some people from the town were with Sam and Dean at an abandoned military base. Jody and Bobby. I was there. You were there.”

“I was?!?” she exclaimed. “What was I doing?”

“You were asleep.”

“Oh. So we were like, fighting the State?”

“I have no idea.” He snapped, though he didn’t mean to, and she looked hurt. He winced internally and opened his door. Becky frowned:

“You didn’t lock it?”

“Nothing to steal.” Chuck deposited his groceries on the table and went to sit down for a minute. Becky stood with her hands on her hips, surveying his cabin. 

“This place is a tip,” she pronounced. 

“I wasn’t expecting company.”

She didn’t take the hint. Instead, she started rummaging around and ordering things, humming tunelessly to herself. He watched a little helplessly as she happened on what she was probably looking for the whole time:

“Hey! More stories!”

“Just dreams,” Chuck dismissed.

“Can I have these?”

“Sure.” ‘Take them away. I never want to see them again’.

“Thanks Chuck!” She gave him a sisterly kiss on the cheek and stuffed the papers into her bag. “I’ll read them later.” A supressed wriggle of glee ran through her as she continued to clean. “This dust is thick enough to write my name in! Don’t you have any cloths or rags?”

“You uh, don’t have to do that.”

“You need a girlfriend,” she winked at him. Chuck felt vaguely alarmed. She went into his kitchen and he could hear water boiling on the hob as Becky continued to hum to herself. He heard her going through the cupboards and she returned with two chipped cups full of leaves and water.

“What is this?” he asked.

“Tea. It’s better for you than alcohol,” her lips pursed disapprovingly. They drank together in silence for a few minutes. The tea tasted like flowers.

“I wish I could meet them,” Becky sighed. “I just know I’m meant to be a part of it.”

“Part of…what?”

“The _revolution!_ What else. Sam and Dean are going to need as many people as they can get.”

“Why don’t you start a revolution?” he suggested flippantly.

“Because,” Becky regarded him a little sadly. “I’m not a hero.”

 

* * *

“This is your fault,” Lilith hissed, wishing the sliding door to her office would slam. “I’ll be demoted,” she spat the word. “I will take this out of your ass, Crowley.”

“Sorry darling,” Crowley drawled, “I like a bit of S and M as much as the next man, but my arse is a valuable commodity.”

“Do _not_ bait me, you bastard,” she spat. “You have your connections, but so do I. If I go down for this I’ll make you wish you’d never heard my name.”

“Oh believe me princess, that would not be difficult,” he deadpanned. She slapped him. It was unprofessional and childish, but she lost control. His head snapped sideways and then he smiled, a red handprint appearing across his cheek. She faced him, seething.

“Where. Are the tapes?” she demanded.

“My office.”

“Get them.”

“And some popcorn?”

“And a plan for tracking down and executing the perpetrators. I _feel_ like an execution,” she glared at him. He saluted insolently and disappeared, reappearing a moment later with the tapes. He inserted the file into her desktop monitor and they watched together in silence. The first flicker in the corner of the screen had her scowling, the cameras tracked the guards as they moved stealthily down the corridors – and then the first glimpse of the perpetrators had her sit up sharply.

They both moved like professionals, with the gait of military personnel, but nothing about their clothing marked them as State. Besides which, State identichips would have set off the scanners concealed in every doorway. Her eyes flickered over the first man with no further interest – 

\- But the other. She knew him.

No. Not knew him. She’d seen him before. Her memory cycled rapidly. Another tape. Nick. Ruby. It was the boy with the powers! She almost gasped out loud. Her mind raced.  
First, they couldn’t punish her. He must have done something, manipulated something…she’d present the tapes to the Council in her defence. She was about to say as much out loud, but stopped herself. If there was any chance of getting Crowley punished first, it would be a shame to waste it. Secondly, she wanted to kill him. He was responsible for Nick’s death. She wanted to _torture_ him, make him suffer….but she wanted to capture him too. She imagined herself presenting before the council…..the boy with the Weapon in his blood. She thrilled.

“You, report to HQ,” she ordered Crowley.

He blanched. “It’s a bloody long way for a chat.”

“Take a transport. De-briefing in person makes for much better communication, don’t you think?” She smiled. He snarled and reached for the tapes.

“I’ll keep those,” Lilith said, stopping him. “I need to study them some more.”

“Make a copy.”

“Are you answering me back, Lieutenant? You have your orders. Go, before I add an insubordination charge to your file.”

He stared at her. She held his gaze. She had him. He saluted, turned on his heel and exited. She heard the muffled “bitch” from the corridor and smirked. ‘I will make this right,’ she vowed silently, to herself, to Nick, or the cause: ‘I will find him, and then – I will make this right’.

TBC


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As ever, ty zara_zee @ LJ for awesome beta skills x

“I think we should visit Bobby,” said Sam.

“What for?” said Dean.

“Uhhh, in order to not be general assholes?” Sam raised his eyebrows. “He did nearly die. After saving my life, probably.”

“Yeah, he saved you, we saved him, we’re even,” Dean returned, but Sam could see him considering it. “I don’t like spending so much time around one area. When we broke into   
that base we made ourselves obvious to the Resistance again.”

“So? Prometheus is dead. I was talking to a guy in the last Ghost town, he says the Resistance is in pieces. It’s all infighting amongst themselves. There’s no leader or plan anymore. They don’t care about us.”

“Yeah, ‘cos Ghosts are such a reliable source of intel,” Dean grumbled. 

“We can barter,” Sam said. “I never got a chance to look around last time, and we need more iodine tincture.”

“Sam,” Dean said, suddenly serious: “Do you want to stay somewhere?”

“I…” Sam shrugged. “I guess it would be nice to have a place, sometimes. Somewhere we could – go back to. But it never seems to work out when we try that. No. No, I just want to visit.”

“Alright, fine.” Dean tossed the small bone of rabbit onto the rest of the piled carcass.

“Good,” Sam stood up. 

“ _Now?_ ”

“You got somewhere urgent you have to be?”

“Alright, keep your panties on,” Dean raised his hands. Something flitted across his face again, uneasy.

* * *

Silence fell over the gathering as Becky lowered the manuscript reverently to her lap.

“Wow,” Rami breathed finally.

“Yeah,” she agreed, closing her eyes. Twenty or so people, ranging in age from early teens to forties, sat in the hut at dusk, half-melted candles illuminating their faces. Becky   
smoothed the corners of the paper she’d just finished reading from: the latest writings by Chuck. In it, Sam and Dean led a raid on a State base, executing the commander and disabling some kind of remote weapon.

“The dark haired boy could be you, Rami,” Joachim offered.

“Nah,” Rami blushed: “I don’t know how to use an assault rifle.”

“You’d have learned, duh!” Ruth smacked him playfully on the arm.

“The short redhead could be Rosemary,” spoke up another girl, and the group fell to trying to recognise themselves and each other in the vision, speculating about what they   
could’ve been doing if they couldn’t identify themselves.

“What I don’t understand, though,” broke in Christian suddenly, “What I don’t understand is why the bunch of us just don’t start our own goddam resistance. Why we gotta wait around for these two heroes to show up? _If_ they ever do.”

“Because we don’t have the _experience_ ,” explained Becky patiently, for the millionth time. “We don’t have the training. We need them to _teach_ us. And now we   
know for sure that Chuck’s a visionary—”

“We don’t _know_ that.”

“Well it’s a pretty damn big coincidence don’t you think?” objected Rami, and the room erupted with bickering.

“Hey! HEY!” Becky wished she had something to bang on the ground and yell, ‘Order!’ “Anyone who doesn’t want to hear the visions doesn’t have to come,” she said primly when   
people were listening again. “Please, leave any time.” There were a few scuffs and mutters but no-one took her up on the offer. “Alright then,” she said.  
“God, this life’s a bitch,” said Joachim suddenly. No-one could answer that very well, so no-one bothered.

* * *

Becky paused in the shade of a lean-to and consulted the list that Jody had given her, crossing off another name. Trepidation coursed through her when she saw who was next: _Doc Singer_. The old doctor was a good guy, she knew that. He’d helped her mom when she was dying – made sure her last days were as comfortable and pain free as was possible. There were drugs in the State that could’ve cured her, he’d said, but no way to get them out here. He sounded bitter about it, bitter and angry, and that made her uncomfortable. Becky was sad, of course, but not bitter or angry. What was the point? Her family had been Ghosts as far back as anyone could remember. Every day Ghosts died because of things that could be cured in another time and place.

She knocked tentatively. Then louder.

“Yeah?” came the doctor’s gruff voice.

“It’s Becky!” she called.

“Who?”

“Becky?”

“Alright, come in.”

She pushed the door. It opened. Doc Singer was sitting in the living room in a battered recliner, his eyes on the gap in the heavy curtains. He looked – old. Older than she remembered.

“You got a problem?” he grunted.

“No, no, just checking up on some of our respected citizens! I brought you groceries…” She jiggled the bag in her arms in demonstration. Singer continued to stare out the windows.

“I’ll just put these in the kitchen…” Becky offered, but didn’t move.

Pause.

“Jody put you up to this?” Singer grunted.

“Well,” Becky admitted, “She’s busy these days. Ever since the virus people have put a lot of trust in her. Asking her to organize things and so on. So she asked me to stop by a few people to see how they were doing…”

“Don’t need no babysitter, kid,” Singer snorted. “You can tell her that next time.”

Becky nodded, unsure what else to do, and scurried into the kitchen to start unpacking the groceries. There was nothing fresh – supply lines were disrupted by the spate of deaths –but several cans, including beans and peas. She opened the nearest cupboard and her mouth pursed disapprovingly at the assortment of dusty bottles. She wondered if Doc Singer had a can opener, and stepped back into the hallway to ask, when a second knock at the door surprised her. Singer either didn’t hear, or wasn’t inclined to answer, and after a moment, the knock came again. A male voice called,

“Doc? You in there?”

“Hello?” Becky called back.

“Hey, who’s there?”

With a quick glance at the living room and back to the door, Becky made her decision, and scurried towards the front door.

“Hi,” she said, throwing it open, and looking up. And up. The newcomers were tall. Tall and _hot_. The dude in front – the tallest – was slim with great muscle tone, slanted eyes and shaggy hair. His slightly-less-hot friend, also slightly less tall, had the redeeming feature of amazing green eyes. She bet he had a nice ass too. Becky had a sense about these things. She may have been a Ghost, and her life may have been hard, with little joy other than what she could force into it, but she wasn’t _dead_. The day she failed to appreciate a view like this, she no longer wanted to live.

“Hi,” she said again, feeling a grin spread across her face and leaning against the doorframe. Was that smooth?

“Hey,” Less-Hot’s eyes barely flicked over her: “Doc Singer home?”

“Who the hell’s there?” Singer chose that moment to call gruffly: “Don’t you all stand around makin free in the hallway, get in here.”

Becky stood aside to let Singer’s guests enter, her eyes lingering a little on the back view as she followed them to the living room. Yep, she was right. _Great_ ass.

“Huh,” said Singer, though he actually sounded more interested than Becky had heard him for years. “Well, the prodigals return. Becky, this here’s Sam and Dean.”

Becky sat down, hard.

 

* * *

 

“Are you okay?” Sam stared at short girl in mild concern. She’d been staring at him like she wanted to eat him pretty much since he walked in the door, but now she suddenly   
paled and sat down.

“Sam…and Dean?” she asked faintly.

“Uh, yeah?”

“You brought the antidote!”

“Well, we owed Bobby one,” said Dean gruffly, relaxing a little now he realized why she was freaking out. Admiring women were rarely a source of concern to Dean, even if they were a little on the creepy side. 

“You’re _the_ Sam and Dean! Who Chuck writes about!”

“Who’s…Chuck?” Sam asked slowly.

“And what do you mean ‘writes about’?” Dean glared.

“He’s a Seer,” Becky said rapidly. “Bioengineered, you know? He was Resistance but he got away. He can see stuff. And he saw how you’re gonna save everyone, and like, lead a war against the State, and I’m gonna _be there!_ ” She practically bounced in her seat.

“You have a Seer here?” Sam exclaimed.

“Hardly,” Bobby snorted.

“What the hell is she talking about?” Dean demanded of Bobby.

“She means _Chuck_ ,” said Bobby derisively. “The so-called Seer. He dreams crap and pronounces to the masses, because he’s a worse drunk than I am.”

“Oh,” Sam deflated.

“He’s not a _drunk_ ,” said the girl. “Well, he is kind of a drunk I guess, but not in the bad way. Anyway he’s also a Seer, and he _predicted_ that you guys would bring us the antidote. He has visions about you all the time! He says you’re gonna help us resist the State, and me and a whole bunch of people are ready to join you—”

“Woah woah woah,” Dean interrupted sharply. “You’re saying this dude has been tracking us? Where does this Chuck live?” he asked Bobby.

“I’ll show you!” Becky volunteered. “Oh my God, he’s gonna be so surprised!”

“But we just got here!” Sam looked to Bobby.

“Heck don’t let me stop you,” Bobby said.

“We’ll come back,” Dean promised. “Sammy, this could be serious. Some asshole knows who we are and he’s been tracking us. He’s either a spy or a psycho and we don’t want either on our tail.”

“He’s not a spy,” Becky frowned, but she didn’t deny the other part. “Come on, I’ll take you to visit him.” She stood up and brushed herself off. “Bobby, we’ll be back soon.”  
Bobby grunted what might have been an acknowledgement, and they followed the bouncy Ghost out the door and into the street. There was no paving here – the ‘street’ was a wide strip of dirt between structures with a few Ghosts hanging round and some dirty chickens pecking for scraps in the shade. Becky kept glancing up at them and grinning gleefully to herself as she led them through the maze of streets out to the edges of town. She stopped by a rundown cabin with sheet plastic for windows and opened the door without knocking.

“Argh!” came a male voice from inside. “Becky, what are you doing here!?”

“Put your pants on Chuck, I’ve got news for you,” said Becky determinedly. There was a flurry of activity, and a small man appeared in the doorway. He was pale with shadows under his eyes, like he didn’t see the sun much. His posture was hunched and his blue eyes rather sad. When he looked up and saw them, his eyes widened to almost comical proportions, and all the color drained from his face. He grabbed the wall to support himself.

“This is Sam and Dean,” said Becky triumphantly. “Sam, Dean, this is Chuck.”

“Ohhh crap,” said the small man nervously and starting to back away.

“What the hell is this about you _writing us?_ ” Dean snarled. “You State?”

“No! No, not State! Resistance, in fact. I mean! I _was_ Resistance. Not by choice. Born there. See?” The man shoved up the sleeves of his ratty robe to reveal a mass of scars – long, thin and definitely deliberate. Becky gasped. Dean stalked over and grabbed one of Chuck’s arms, searching for an identichip incision. 

“Dean,” Sam said.

“How do you know about us?” Dean demanded.

“I don’t! I don’t know about anything!”

“You’re lying.”

Sam didn’t speak, but he thought so too. The man’s eyes shifted guiltily to Becky and back to them, his voice too tight for sincerity.

“Okay,” he squeaked. “Okay. Let’s all just – chill, okay? The truth is I maybe, possibly, do know you. I mean, I’ve seen you. But I’m not a spy,” he amended quickly. “I don’t work for anyone. I’m just a Ghost. I’m a Ghost! But I’ve been …bioengineered.”

“It’s possible,” Sam said quietly. 

“I don’t like it,” Dean narrowed his eyes at Chuck.

“Why don’t we all sit down,” Becky looked unhappy – her meeting of champions evidently wasn’t going the way she expected it to. “There’s a kind of sitting room through here. I’ll make tea.”

“I’ll get booze,” Chuck offered.

“That sounds more like it,” Dean relented, though he didn’t touch the whiskey Chuck poured and set in front of him. Chuck downed two shots rapidly and made to pour a third. Becky took the bottle away from him. He whimpered. Sam and Dean sat on a couch that was almost worn down to the frame, Becky sat cross-legged on the floor, and Chuck paced. 

“So,” Dean said coolly, fingering his gun handle, “I think you should start talking.”

“Okay,” Chuck drew a breath. “Um….”

“You were born into the Resistance,” Sam prompted kindly.

“Right,” Chuck nodded like a puppet being jerked. “Same as you. My parents were part of the Scheme. They knew your mother when she was young.”

Dean’s face was hard.

“Um, right,” Chuck winced. “I was supposed to be a Seer. To sense the movements of people around me, people I knew really. It didn’t work. I got dreams – random flashes of people I didn’t know – but I guessed my brain was inventing it. When I was ten, they started experimenting, trying to push my abilities to the surface.” He gestured vaguely in the direction of his scars. “There are more of these.”

“They tortured you,” said Becky quietly.

“Uh, yeah….they tortured a lot of people,” Chuck giggled nervously. “So everyone assumed I was a dud. I mean, me included. But I’ve always had dreams about these two guys…not those kind of dreams!” he amended as Becky’s mouth opened a little. “They’re brothers! Half-brothers actually. Anyway the dreams are like stories. Narratives. About these guys who were born into the Resistance and then stuff happened and they both ended up in the State, and lately the dreams have been about them starting this new resistance movement and the twoguysnamesareSamandDeanandtheykindofreallylooklikeyou,” the last came out in a rush. “In fact I think they are you.” He stared down. “Sorry.”

Becky clapped her hands.

“How long have you had these dreams?” Sam asked.

“As long as I can remember. I think I’m about forty or so, so I mean more than thirty years. I saw you born,” he looked at Sam, avoiding Dean’s gaze: “To Mary.”

Sam swallowed.

“Yeah well,” Dean snapped after a long pause. “So you have visions. Big deal. You ain’t the only one. It doesn’t mean we have to obey your little plan.”  
“It’s not my plan!” Chuck yelped, holding up his hands. “I don’t want to be part of any resistance.”

“You’ve seen yourself there?” Becky stared at him.

“Uhhh maybe.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“It seemed kind of unlikely. I don’t really figure myself as a hero,” he picked at a thread on his bathrobe.

“So why do you tell people this stuff?” Sam asked.

“I don’t. She does,” Chuck pointed at Becky. “I just write it down. It helps get it out of my mind, you know?” he made circular hand gesture near his head.

“People need to know,” said Becky firmly. “It gives them something to hold on to. You’re their hope,” she gazed at Sam and Dean.

“Sorry sweet cheeks, we’re outta that game,” Dean said abruptly and stood up. “Stop writing shit about us,” he commanded Chuck. “Or if you have to, burn it. And stop giving   
people ideas,” he added to Becky. “If you care about your buddies, don’t get their hopes up.”

“Did you have other visions about my parents?” Sam asked.

“Sammy,” Dean sounded pained. “What does it matter?”

“Uhhh…” Chuck did an excellent impression of a small animal hypnotized by a predator. At that moment, they were interrupted by an urgent outbreak of voices outside, and someone hammered the wall of the cabin near a piece of plastic sheeting that served as a window. “What now?” Chuck groaned. Becky peeled the plastic back and said,

“Hello?”

“Stay inside,” came Jody’s familiar voice with a new air of authority. “The State improved their chemical weapon. The antidote’s useless, and this time it _can_ be passed between humans.”

TBC


	7. Chapter 7

“Oh my God, we’re all gonna die,” said Chuck.

Becky looked wide-eyed at Sam and Dean like she expected them to do something.

“Do any of the bottles in this house contain water?” Dean asked Chuck. “Better yet, do you   
have a reserve supply?”

“There’s a tank out back,” said Chuck. 

“Go empty it before someone else does,” Dean instructed.

“I don’t wanna go out there!” 

“I’ll go with him,” said Sam quickly.

“What should I do?” Becky asked.

“Seal the windows and doors,” Dean said. “I don’t suppose our psychic friend has anything like sealant, but look for tape. Glue. Anything.” 

She nodded and starting rummaging through a stack of cardboard boxes overflowing with papers, a mug, and some odds and ends. Dean headed for the kitchen and started organizing what actual food there was by order of perishability. Sam and Chuck returned several minutes later with a few vats of water and Becky discovered some masking tape.

“Okay, so we’ll get out of here,” Dean said. “Good luck, I guess.”

“What? No!” Becky was dismayed. “You have to stay! This must be it!”

“Be what?” Sam asked.

“You know, the catalyst!” She waved her hands. “The event that leads to us starting our own resistance!”

“It’s probably not safe to leave now,” Chuck said timidly. “You could get infected just by stepping outside the door.”

Dean and Sam exchanged a look.

“He’s right,” Sam said at last. “It’s probably more sensible to wait at least a few days…until we know what we’re dealing with.”

Becky nodded frantically.

“By the time we know what we’re dealing with, this place could be zombieland,” said Dean. “If I thought you two could survive in the badlands, I’d say forget the windows and make a break for it. Now, before your town guards get too trigger happy.”

“No,” Becky shook her head. “My friends are here. Everybody I care about is here.”

“Dean,” said Sam quietly, “What about Bobby? Jody?”

Dean looked torn, suddenly. 

“Holing up here probably isn’t more dangerous than trying to get out,” Sam pressed. It wasn’t true. But if there was anything in what they said about Chuck – if there was even a possibility – Sam was determined to stay and see how things played out. Ideas he would not yet give form to resurged, and He could feel his heart in his throat, adrenalin in his blood And Dean knew Sam.

“Alright,” Dean put up his hands. “We’ll stick around. But that means we’re eating your food and drinking your water,” he reminded Chuck. 

Chuck nodded.

“It might not be for long,” Chuck he said hopefully.

And it wasn’t, but not for the right reasons.

 

* * * 

 

Within three days about three quarters of the town was dead. Some hadn’t quarantined themselves or stopped drinking the tap water fast enough. Mothers caught it from children they wouldn’t abandon; children caught it from parents they wouldn’t leave. Lovers committed suicide together, their corpses found afterwards still holding hands, single bullet holes in their heads. 

Late on the fourth day a blonde man in his thirties turned up.

“Christian,” said Becky a little coldly.

“Might as well come out,” he said laconically. “No-one left infected. They’re all dead.”

“Jody?” Becky asked.

He shrugged. “Sorry.”

Becky’s face crumpled briefly, but she composed herself.

“Doc Singer?” Dean asked, coming up behind Becky.

“Who the hell are you?” said Christian.

“This is _Dean_ ,” said Becky, glaring. “ _Sam_ would be inside. They’re real, Christian.”

“Well now,” the blonde raised his eyebrows. “That’s interesting.”

“Who the hell are you?” Dean demanded.

“Friend of Becky’s,” said the man. Becky looked uncomfortable. “Heard the stories about you guys. Have to say, so far I ain’t seen much sign of you living up to the legends.” He gestured around and behind himself at the deserted street. 

“So is Doc Singer alive?” Becky cut in hastily.

“Last I heard.” Christian shoved his hands in his pockets. “Anyway, I’m gonna go. More houses to check.”

“Yeah you do that,” said Dean.

“So what are you gonna do?” Christian challenged him. 

“I’m gonna find something to eat that isn’t dried beans with water sauce,” Dean beamed at him.

 

“Great,” Christian sneered. “Your heroes ever start pulling their weight, let me know,” he addressed Becky, then turned his back.

“What a dick,” said Dean.

“He is kind of a dick,” Becky said. “But he wouldn’t lie about it being safe.”

Chuck could not be persuaded to leave his bolthole or his remaining whiskey, but Becky, Sam and Dean set out to explore what remained of the Ghost town. They gave the bodies a wide berth, but filled their bags with as much food, bottled water and medical supplies as they could carry. They were heading, by silent agreement, in the general direction of Singer’s house. Occasionally they saw other small parties or lone Ghosts who were also foraging. Ghosts stopped and stared at them, and Becky stared back, triumphantly, in a way that made Dean profoundly uncomfortable. He turned to catch Sam’s eyes, and the beginnings of excitement he could see in them troubled him. Dammit.

Singer was alive, and pissed. He was sitting on his porch with a shotgun, apparently prepared to see off would-be looters.

“Take more than a damn chemical to finish me off,” he growled. “Thought you idjits woulda figured that the first time.”

Seeing as they’d gathered as much as they could carry, they decided to stay at Singer’s that night. Sammy and his number one fan headed for the kitchen to sort something for dinner from their bounty.

“That’s right, let the women work,” Dean said loudly to Singer. Sam’s ‘fuck you’ was audible from the kitchen. Singer rolled his eyes.

“So,” he said quietly to Dean. “What’s up?”

Dean raised his eyebrows.

“I don’t see you for five, six years, suddenly you’re my regular houseguest?”

“Sammy wanted to come,” Dean shrugged.

“And this wouldn’t have anything to do with Chuck’s ‘visions’?”

“I don’t believe in that crap.”

“Well good. Carry on not believing it. Ain’t no faster way to get killed than trying to be a hero. Way I see it, we should let the State and Resistance fight it out between themselves. Stay the hell outta the way. With any luck, they’ll destroy each other and leave the rest of us to behave like decent folk.” Singer stopped short, , as though taken aback at hearing himself talk so much. He was sharp today, Dean thought, and the smell of booze was noticeably absent. There was a clang from the kitchen and Becky said,

“Oops.” 

Bobby winced. “Goddamn, there’ll be nothing left of the place by the time that girl’s through with it.”

Several minutes later, the chefs returned with an offering of canned beef, rice and peas. It was a feast after the past few days, and they all fell to eating in silence. They were interrupted near the end with a short rap at the front door.

“I’ll get it,” Sam offered.

“Me too!” said Becky, and Dean felt a surge of jealousy. It was stupid, and not like he would suspect Sam for a second, but jeez, she was persistent. The door opened, and an unknown voice asked,

“Is that one of them?”

Dean got up and went to see what happening. In the doorway, he halted fast.

Singer’s front yard, such as it was, was filled to capacity. There were maybe thirty people, pale and worn-down and dirty, their faces turned to the door in anxious anticipation. At the back, Chuck was attempting to disappear behind someone else’s rucksack.

“CHUCK,” said Dean.

“Um, hi?”

“What is this?”

“These are your followers,” Becky said somberly. “The beginnings of the new movement.”

“I don’t believe this,” muttered Dean. Then: “Look,” he raised his voice. “I am sorry if anyone’s been misled. Chuck, for whatever reason, has visions about me and Sam here. He doesn’t like it and neither do we – to tell you the truth, it’s goddam creepy to have someone playing Peeping Tom over any random part of your existence.” And oh – that was a bad thought. What if Chuck knew about….? Dean dismissed it. He could threaten Chuck about that later. “However – we are not your saviors. Sorry. Find another guy.”

“Dean,” said Sam quietly. When Sam really wanted his attention, he didn’t’ shout, he just raised his voice in this urgent, imperative way that meant, if you ignore me, I will punish you. Sam gestured for Dean to step back into the hallway, and then he said,

“These people need help. Look at them. And there will be more like this. Since Jody’s dead…”  
Dean glanced back out and looked again. They were hungry, tired, grieving. Some had dirty bandages wrapping limbs, and in one case across an eyeball. 

“What do you want us to do about it?” Dean snapped.

“Just…set up some kind of base. Organize them. Just till the town gets back on its feet,” he gestured around him to the large, empty house. “This is as good a place as any.”

Dean stared at him, and Sam knew that he was rapidly giving in. “Alright,” he said at last. “If Bobby’s okay with it. Just – for a little while.”

Sam smiled.

* * *

Bobby was okay with it. If anything, he seemed pleased, or as pleased as he was about anything. He took the news of Jody’s death with equanimity – Sam supposed he had seen enough death in his life that none came as a shock anymore. Sam and Dean’s experiences, both in the State and afterwards, combined with Becky’s energy and enthusiasm for…everything …meant that within a day, they had some sort of semi-efficient arrangement going. Those in need of medical treatment were set up in the lounge. Those able to go out and forage immediately were sent, water being the top priority. In addition to supplies, they kept bringing more survivors, and soon every room in Bobby’s house was crowded at all times. The two surviving engineers among them took over the kitchen table, and started drawing up plans to drain the reservoir and siphon a different river until the winter brought more rain. It looked good in the abstract, but the lack of healthy workers to bring the plans about was a serious concern.

Aside from Bobby and Becky, the Ghosts treated Sam and Dean with quiet, fervent reverence. It seemed there was nothing like a disaster to cure a skeptic. Dean encouraged the lack of engagement by growling at anyone who dared broach any topic aside from the immediate and pragmatic, but Sam encouraged them by smiling and trying to hold their eyes. The Ghosts had no such reverence for Chuck, and the poor nervous Seer was harassed non-stop about visions or lack thereof. In desperation for privacy, Chuck took to shutting himself into one of the broken down cars in Bobby’s back yard, quickly working his way through whatever alcohol could be salvaged from the town. They mostly let him have it – either in tribute, or some kind of silent acknowledgement that his situation sucked.

“You brought the antidote,” said a girl to Sam, on the third night of the new arrangement. He was outside, attempting to get away from his admirers for a while, but a group of four Ghosts had followed him.

“Yeah,” he shrugged it off. “Shame it didn’t last.”

“But…” One of the boys spoke up. “How did you do it? Get into the State base? Did you use…?”

“No,” he said, and then paused. “I don’t think so.” He hadn’t consciously employed his powers. But they had been, by any reckoning ridiculously lucky. Was it possible he had influenced something? The speed of the guard’s reactions? The degree of movement picked up by the security camera? A quiet thrill went through him at the notion.

“What’s it like?” asked another girl, sitting down near him, but not too close. “Can you, like, do anything you want?” 

“No,” snorted Sam.

“So what can you do?” pressed the boy. They were inching closer, gathering in a loose circle, their eyes too wide and their faces too eager, hopeful. Sam took a deep breath. He felt excited. And, against his better judgement, he began to tell them.

 

* * *

Breathing hard, Crowley wiped the sweat from his brow and straightened his dust-covered uniform. Bugger him, but that was close. He’d actually been reduced to diving into a ditch, like some kind of bloody clown. Alistair had troops looking for him – it looked bad when your prisoner escaped before the morning of his execution. Crowley smirked. Hadn’t that bastard been smug when Crowley was marched before the tribunal. After the sentencing, a disgusting smile on his thin lips, he’d leaned in close and whispered:

“Well well, how the not-so-mighty have fallen.” His mouth had almost touched Crowley’s ear, and Crowley had wanted badly to scrub himself in a shower.

After a day trudging through the desert, Crowley also wanted a stiff drink, a new outfit, a place to spend the night, and a large metal pipe with which to beat Alistair’s snaky face in. He waited to make sure the sounds of vehicles had well and truly faded, then poked his head above the road side, looked right, then left. The coast clear, he began to walk slowly southward, away from the road. He had managed to escape with a bottle of water and a long knife, though but unfortunately no gun. The knife had belonged to one of the prison guards, whose body must now lie cooling in a sanitation pit. 

He passed up the first Ghost town he came to – it was too big, and the thought of that many vermin all squashed together gave him the heebie-jeebies. He’d probably catch something. By midday, though, he was almost regretting that decision. His water was long gone, he was tired, and insects were working their way inside his shirt to gnaw enthusiastically at him: no matter how many of the tiny bastards he killed, they just kept coming. The next town he came to, he stopped. Town was a generous term. It was really just a cluster of huts – no gates, no guards, but outside one of the huts was a broken-down truck. Beggars couldn’t be choosers. He paused, considered, and lifted his shirt. With the knife, he made three long, deliberate cuts across his torso, the kind that bled freely but weren’t deep enough to do any real damage. He patted his shirt down over them, satisfied with the way the blood soaked through the fabric, and added a couple of nicks to his face for good measure. He knocked at the door of the nearest hut and sprawled theatrically in the dirt.

 

TBC


	8. Chapter 8

It was a measure of these uncivilized parts that the Ghost that opened the hut door did not immediately spring to Crowley’s aid. Rather, she lowered the shotgun she was holding when she took in his bloodied state, and glanced furtively right and left, then blew her breath out.

“Anyone on your tail?” she asked.

“No Ma’am,” rasped Crowley – with conviction, he thought.

“Alright. Get inside,” she gestured with the shotgun. “We got a few bandages and some alcohol, but there’s no doctor around here.”

“Thank you,” Crowley made a staggering bow and ducked inside the hut. All it held were two pallet beds and a large trunk, an unlit gas stove and a few rugs. The light inside came from candles. A small Ghost was sitting on a rug sewing something: she looked up in surprise at their entrance.

“Gretchen,” said the adult, and the girl understood, going immediately to the trunk and retrieving the promised supplies.

“What happened?” asked the woman, relaxing slightly, as Crowley sank onto one of the rugs as though in more pain than he was.

“I was robbed,” he sighed. “Mugged on the way to a trade.”

“Alone?”

“They killed my wife.”

“Sorry.” 

Abrupt little rats, Crowley mused. He was offended on his theoretical late wife’s behalf. He felt vague regret that he didn’t know how to hotwire, which would have rendered this whole façade unnecessary, but there had been no call to learn such a thing in the Resistance. To his surprise, he felt a brief flash of regret for the life he’d now certainly lost for good, and he chastised himself. He was becoming sentimental in his old age.The girl brought him bandages and alcohol, then disappeared from the hut and returned with a tin cup of water. The woman didn’t move, and neither released the shotgun nor aimed it at him.

“You can stay till my husband comes back,” she said. “We just got some petrol in the truck. Can’t spare much, but he’ll set you on the way to wherever you’re going.”

Crowley bowed his head as though overcome by gratitude. “And on my return, ma’am, I will pay you back.”

“Hm,” the Ghost looked doubtful. “Well, if Ghosts can’t lend each other a hand in need, you know the world’s over,” She shrugged.

“True words,” Crowley nodded sagely, and made a pained show of cleaning himself up. The little Ghost watched him with wide eyes, and he made himself smile back. The “husband”, if one could call a Ghost that, returned just as it was starting to get dark, and Crowley was pleased to see that he was missing an arm, which made everything a little easier. Overpowering the man the as soon as they’d driven beyond sight and sound of the scummy huts was absolute child’s play. Crowley hadn’t slit a throat in quite a while, and there was an odd, visceral satisfaction in it that bombs and guns just didn’t provide, even if it was only a Ghost. Shame about the upholstery, but one couldn’t have everything. 

 

* * *

“Got yourself quite a group of admirers,” Dean said to Sam. Sam rolled his eyes.

“I’m just saying, don’t let anyone get too attached. It’s only gonna get worse for them when we bail.”

“Becky’s already pretty attached.”

“I noticed.”

“Don’t be a jerk.” Sam sighed and turned over in the bed they were sharing. They still had no idea what Bobby would think about their relationship, but now it was easy to plead overcrowing as an excuse to room together. “What’s wrong with giving people a little hope, Dean? Something to believe in?”

“Nothing wrong. Till it all comes crashing down around them.”

“I’m going to sleep.”

Dean didn’t respond to that. Sam couldn’t sleep for a while, long enough that he heard Dean’s breaths even out, sensed his body go lax beside him. Then Sam was standing in a stone room with a knife in his hand, and the sounds of the sea crashed outside and beyond, and he knew he was high up. A tower. A blonde woman was in the room, narrow-faced and grim, the Resistance uniform fitting her like a second skin, and he had come to kill her. He raised the knife, and was flung backwards, pinned to the wall, and the pain was going to tear him apart. He was screaming. The woman was walking towards him, hand outstretched, and she smiled a terrible, bloodied smile – her teeth were rotting and broken. She came closer, and closer, and the pain peaked, and the scream Sam screamed in his dream was suddenly a scream in the waking world, as he sat bolt upright, sweat drenched. Dean was up at once, arms around him, and saying ‘shhh. Shhh.’ He pressed his lips to Sam’s neck, his back, cheek and temple. Sam whimpered pathetically, bit his own lip.

“What was it?” Dean rocked him a little.

“I think a death vision.”

“Whose?”

“Mine.”

Dean froze.

“And….someone else’s. Resistance.” At the moment he’d died in the dream, bright with agony, he’d felt with a deep conviction that the effort had killed the blond woman too: bursting his heart, she had burst her own with the effort.

“What happened?” Dean asked quietly.

“I…it was hazy,” Sam lied. He didn’t know why, but the compulsion to keep the details to himself was stronh, and already he wished he had not so much about it. “I don’t   
know.”

“Well,” Dean said, releasing him to cup his face and hold his eyes. “It’s alright. We know your visions don’t always turn out like you see them. Remember max?” Sam   
nodded, feeling like a child. “We’ll stop it,” Dean promised him. “Don’t worry.” Sam closed his eyes and perssed his forehead against Dean’s shoulder. Much as Dean could be a jerk, his tenderness at these occasional moments never failed to overwhelm Sam.

“Thank you,” he said.

Dean kissed his hair. A benediction. “Alright now?” he asked after moment.

“Mm.”

“Headache?”

Sam nodded without raising his head.

“Want me to grab something from Bobby’s stash?”

“You make him sound like a dealer.”

Dean grinned, teeth bright in the dark. “Be right back.” He got up and returned a few moments later with a couple of pills and some water. Sam took them without asking what they were, and within a few minutes it was obvious they were pretty strong. He could feel himself sliding back to sleep, Dean a comforting weight against him.

* * * 

It was stupid to waste a gift.

Some would call it a curse, sure, and perhaps it was…but there wasn’t any sense in throwing away what you had a chance of using. Sam started trying to see again – just   
little things, close at hand, like where the best stashes of supplies remained. He struck up a tentative conversation with Chuck about the nature of visions, and was vaguely jealous when Chuck claimed he never did anything to encourage his visions, they just happened, on a fairly regular basis, and yes, he was still dreaming.   
Sam started attempting to use his telekinesis. In a small way, a stupid way. It was difficult to get any privacy, and he knew the younger Ghosts were watching him sometimes, in the junkyard. He only did it when Dean was out foraging. Not out of guilt. No. It was just that Dean made everything into a problem when it didn’t have to be, and would interpret Sam’s little attempts to help things in the best way he could as a harbinger of trouble. Imagine how useful Sam’s powers could be when it came to the new reservoir.

The way Dean found was unfortunate – but necessary. Christian wanted to kill him. Christian had a switchblade, which he was going to slide between Dean’s ribs as the   
three of them were foraging together, and Sam saw it distinctly just as Christian began to move towards Dean, oh so casual, the disorientation of the vision sliding on top of reality awful and jarring, two discordant and piercing tones at the same time, screeching full volume through his brain. He saw the surprised look on Dean’s face, the round ‘o’ of his mouth, the way he’d meet Christian’s eyes, and then Sam’s, with such disappointment….intolerable Sam heard himself shout something, maybe Dean’s name, and then Christian flew backwards across the room, knife falling guilty from his hand to clatter on the ground. In a split second Dean had a gun out and aimed at Christian, who was gaping at Sam in horror, slumped against a wall.

“You…freak,” Christian gasped.

“What the fuck is this?” Dean bit out, kicking the knife.

Christian laughed a little, breathlessly. “You’re smart enough to know.”

Rosemary, the other Ghost who’d been foraging with them, froze and stared wide-eyed.

“Why?” Sam asked.

“Why not?” Christian returned, his voice high and a little hysterical. “You’re not helping. You’re holding us back.”

“If it wasn’t for us, they’d all listen to you, right?” said Dean sarcastically.

Christian shrugged, awkwardly, shoulder damaged by collision with the wall. Sam felt sick with the after effects of the power, adrenalin dissipating in his blood

“They ought to,” Christian said. “We could make our own movement. There are enough of us. Ghosts. Just need somebody to organize....intsead they just sit around waiting on _him_ ,” he stared hatefully at Sam. “And he won’t do anything without _you_.”

“Ah. So you take me out, Sam has no reason not to join your suicide crusade? That’s…actually a little less dumb than I gave you credit for.”

“How do you live with yourselves?” It was plural, but he was looking at Sam. ”You have the ability to change things. People look to you. And you do nothing because you _don’t want the responsibility?_ You’re pathetic. You-” Headshots at close range were always messy, and bone and brain splattered against the wall. Rosemary screamed.

“Fucking liability,” Dean said, reholstering his gun.

“Was that necessary?” Sam bit off.

“He just tried to kill _me_ ,” Dean looked at Sam sideways. Sam scowled. Dean was right, of course – it was really the exhibitionism of the thing. Rosemary was sheet-white, looking back and forth from Sam to Dean like she didn’t know whether she was petrified or ecstatic. 

“I – can’t always do that,” Sam offered. “It’s like – a freak adrenalin thing.”

Rosemary nodded frantically, raised her cupped hands to her mouth, then lowered them again. “It’s amazing,” she said finally.

“Yeah well,” Dean shifted. “We need to get back.”

“Don’t worry about Christian,” said Roseamary quickly. “I mean, no-one liked him. Say he turned on me, if you want. Say it was to protect me.”

“I’m not gonna say anything,” Dean glared at her. “Nor are you.” Sam frowned, his heart beating fast. He offered Rosemary an apologetic look and they headed back for   
Singer’s.

 

* * *

Demotion. 

She was lucky, really. It could have been death, or exile, which was the same thing. It was only the proof she’d been up against a Weapon that saved her: those few who’d seen the tape from Ruby were convinced, and there were rumbles about tracking the boy down, rehabilitating him, but no concrete plans. Times were hard. After the fall of Prometheus, the State had made two major strikes on Resistance bases, taking numbers with dirty bombs and key players with snipers. If Lilith was still a Commander she could help. This hurt. She was angry. Called to Base like a disgraced dog, taking orders from idiots, guard duty, drills, mundane tasks a child could have managed. Alistair put his filthy hands on her arms with impunity, and there was nobody she could complain to. Azazel went off to manage the Leviathan project, and the freak improved the formula in days.

Her time was full but felt empty. She woke, usually after a dream of Nick or his killer, and went to drills, then breakfast. In the afternoon she was either on guard or had some minor part in a routine mission – canon fodder, except she was too intelligent to get killed. Then dinner, then an hour of free time before evening exercises. It was only then that she had a moment to think.

It was obvious to her that none of the new Council knew what they were doing. There was no grand plan. The Weapons project was neglected; she pestered her old contacts at the Council, those who were still sympathetic, but nobody had any real news for her. She divided her mind between hating Nick’s killer and hating Azazel’s contingent on the council. But it wasn’t in her nature or her training to be idle for long. When things were bad she made them better. What she needed was supporters, allies – and the only way to get them was to offer something the Council couldn’t.

In the relative quiet of the early evening, Lilith slipped through the sleeping quarters, identified herself to a wall panel and consulted the digital roster. Finding the right door, she knocked pressed the buzzer.

“Yes?”

“Doctor, may I have word?”

She was buzzed in. One upside to the relative neglect of the base – fewer security cameras to go around. She doubted the private quarters of such a respected old citizen would be high on the list of priorities.

“Can I help you?” the old man smiled, a little puzzled. 

“Doctor Regis,” she smiled her most winning smile, “You wouldn’t remember me, but my name is Lilith.”

“I recognise you,” he nodded. “You were the Commander at the-“ Her dark look cut him off effectively enough. She quickly smiled again.   
“I was one of the girls tested for carrier potential in the Weapons program,” she said.

“Oh.” He blinked. “I’m, I’m sorry, we tested a lot of girls in those days…”

“Yes,” Lilith sighed and sat down on a chair, crossing her legs prettily. “Everybody was so excited about it.”

“The only program of its kind,” his eyes lit up. She had calucated correctly – it was still there. Regis had been the most fervent, the most dedicated of the scientists on the program. He had lived and breathed the Weapon for decades. “Seems the Council has _better things_ to be doing now.” The irony with which he infused the phrase left no doubt that for him, nothing deserved precedence over the Weapon.

“It seems a shame,” Lilith said.

“A shame! It’s a _waste_! We were close,” the old man got up, agitated. “We had formulas that could hone the potential in children. But too many were dying,” he shook his head. “There were fewer of us in those days.”

“And the formulas,” Lilith said carefully, eyes as wide as they’d go. “Could anybody take them? People used to say….” She looked down at her hands. Breathed in. “Doctor, all I want is to help the Resistance.” And looked up. “It’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

“What did…people used to asy?”

“They used to say you had created something that could alter DNA. That if an ordinary person took the formula, powers would manifest.” She fixed him with a stare, earnest but intent. Regnis glanced at her. Then he looked around, unsure.

“We don’t know,” he said. “The trial risk was always too high.”

“And what if someone volunteered?”

He returned her stare, then shook his head. “I couldn’t,” he said. “It could kill you.”

“And if it does? An honorable death for the cause is all any of us can ask, as individuals. The Council doesn’t care what happens to me now. Test subject would probably suit them. It wouldn’t even have to be a secret. I can get permission.” Her mind raced ahead to how she would phrase the request.

Pause.

“You’re a good person, Lilith,” he said quietly at last.

“Maybe,” she shrugged. 

 

TBC


	9. Chapter 9

“We have to leave,” Sam said to Dean.

“Right,” Dean nodded. “I’ll grab the stuff and-“

“No,” Sam cut him off. “I mean we have to move. Everyone. We’re running out of water There’s no way we’ll get the reservoir re-routed in time to provide for everyone.   
We have to move the base.”

“What – how?” Dean stared at him. “Do you even realize how impractical that is? Move these people across the Badlands? We’d be a gift-wrapped present for anyone   
who wanted to take us out. And where would we go?”

“Chuck’s got the co-ordinates.” Sam spread a sheet of paper on the kitchen table. It was a rough sketch map, which he and his fellow Seer had created together. In truth, they’d worked out the co-ordinates between them, but Dean didn’t need to know that. 

“And this is?” Dean indicated the circled X, near the edge of the map.

“An abandoned Base. State, so far as we can tell. Water supply’s still useable. We can get electricity running. It’s a gift.”

“It’s your _vision_ ,” Dean glared at him. “Is it me, Sam, or does this feel like walking directly into a trap?”

“We won’t all move at once,” Sam continued as though Dean hadn’t spoken. “I was thinking advance guard. Take Becky, Chuck, Bobby, get the place set up. There are enough working vehicles in this town to transport maybe a third of the people here.”

“They won’t all come.”

Sam shrugged. “Less to manage.”

“I don’t like it,” Dean pulled a chair out with a loud creak and sat down abruptly.

“Dean,” Sam gave him wide-eyes. “I can’t leave these people to die here. And deep down, I know you can’t either. That’s not who you are. That’s not the person I….” Damn him. Sam could be a truly manipulative little bitch, and sometimes it hurt, how he knew that Dean would ultimately do anything for him and wasn’t afraid to use it. A wave of some harsh, painful feeling came over Dean, and he refused to give it a name like desperation. If he said no, Sam would try it anyway, and probably get himself killed. And Dean just – couldn’t. Couldn’t contemplate that. How the fuck had he gotten here?

“Alright,” Dean held up his hands.

“ _Thank you_ ,” the deepest sincerity and gratitude. “I love you.”

Dean shook his head a little helplessly.

“You should go first,” said Sam. “Take Chuck, he knows where it is, and he can contact me if the phones go down.”

Dean raised his eyebrows. “Um, what? You guys been having some kind of psychic tea parties together?”

“We discovered it by accident,” Sam blinked. “He was thinking about me, and I heard him. So I tried to reply, and it worked.”

“Well I guess that’s…useful,” Dean admitted.

Sam smiled. Fuck, Dean was whipped. It was aggravating, was what it was. Sam leaned across the table, not caring that Ghosts could be watching, cupped Dean’s face, and kissed him, cheekily swiping his tongue inside then retracting. Pride had never been Dean’s strong point, but that was annoying. “So you’ll take the first contingent?” Sam said.

* * * 

Chuck, it turned out, was good for something besides psychic channelling. Once he sobered up, he was an obsessive organiser and maker of lists, so Dean put him in charge of supplies for the first caravan. Besides Chuck, Becky and Rosemary, there were seven Ghosts whose names Dean made a swift effort to absorb. Becky put up a small fuss about separation from Sam, but they gave her some bullshit about needing her people skills to help settle the new base, and she relented. 

“Let’s get one thing straight,” Dean said to his ragtag group of pioneers, as they stood in the junkyard at dawn weighed down with backpacks, Chuck studying a clipboard he’d salvaged from somewhere. “This is gonna be brutal. Has anyone here made any kind of trek across the Badlands?” Two hands were raised out of ten: Rosemary, and a guy named Hamid. That left eight total novices. “You are all undertaking this of your own free will, and I make no guarantees we’re all gonna reach this base alive. Or that it even exists. That’s on him,” he pointed to Chuck, who cringed a little. “In fact the odds are at least some of us will die on the way. You get sick or hurt bad, the best thing we can do for you is a bullet. Last chance. Would anyone prefer to stay and take their chances with the water supply here?”

Silence.

“Then let’s do it,” Dean hefted his pack on his shoulder, and using Chuck as their compass, they set out.

The cavalcade marched in silence for a while. It was a clear day, not cold, and they’d all managed to get something for breakfast. The pace was of course slower than Dean would have set for himself, and he found himself starting to –not relax, that wasn’t it –

“Accept?” Chuck said from his shoulder.

Dean jumped. “Are you _reading my thoughts_?” he asked in horror.

“Sorry,” Chuck winced. “You’re thinking really loud.”

Dean stared at him. “How often are you doing that?”

“Not all the time,” Chuck assured him. “Mostly when you’re close or having really intense thoughts or emotions. I’m not doing it on purpose,” he quickly added. 

A horrible feeling came over Dean. Exactly _how much_ of his and Sam’s - personal business - did Chuck know?”

“Yeah, that,” Chuck admitted.

“Stop it!”

“I can’t help it! I don’t _enjoy_ it! It’s not like I’m getting a free—” Dean clamped his hand over Chuck’s mouth before he could finish that sentence. Chuck went   
red. When Dean removed his hand, he said,

“Look, I’m not judging, if that’s what you’re worried about. It’s an…effed-up world.”

Dean couldn’t helped it – he snorted with laughter. “ _Effed-up?_ ”

Chuck kicked the dirt.

When they stopped for the night, without greater event than a few blisters and scratches, the Ghosts immediately circled Chuck, demanding prophecy. They gave Dean   
a respectful distance, and he set himself up in his own tent a few yards away. He ate two protein bars, drank the last of his day’s water, and missed Sam with a physical ache.

“Jee-eez,” Chuck pushed the tent flap open and ducked inside. “They’re persistent.”

“Hey!” Dean glared. “Who invited you in? I could have been jerking off in here!”

“I kind of knew you weren’t.”

“Well, that’s creepy.”

“Yeah. Sorry.”

“Alright, you might as well pull up a bedroll,” Dean grumbled. “Seeing as they’re not gonna let you get any sleep otherwise.”

“Thanks,” Chuck said gratefully, and did so. After a moment he said, “Do you ever feel like—”

“Oh God,” Dean groaned. “Chuck I said you could sleep here, I didn’t invite you to group therapy.”

“It’s just…” Chuck picked at a thread in the bedroll. “You and me, we’re kinda in the same boat.”

“How d’you figure that?”

“At the mercy of greater forces,” Chuck waved a hand vaguely in the air. “Hey that’s good. I should write that down.”

“Speak for yourself,” Dean glared. “I ain’t at the mercy of anything.”

“But you don’t want to be here. You’re doing this for Sam.”

“That’s my business.”

“And why does he want it?” Chuck gave a look that was almost sly. “Those of us who are engineered…fate seems to take strange paths for us. Damn, I’m on a roll. You got a pen?”

Dean snorted.

“I’m just saying,” Chuck shrugged. “I understand.”

“Go to sleep, Chuck.”

“I can’t. I’d normally have had at least two drinks by now.”

“Then shut up.” Dean felt a tiny bit bad. The guy was like one of those dogs with the long sad faces that slobbered all over you. It wasn’t so much that you wanted them up in your face as that being mean to one seemed like the actions of a douchebag. He modified his tone: “There’s a couple of fingers of whiskey in the side pocket of my backpack. From Bobby. You can have it if it’ll make you stop talking, and you promise not to get dehydrated and collapse on us tomorrow.”

“Sweet,” Chuck helped himself. Then, “Man, I still can’t believe you’re a real person.”

“Good _night_ , Chuck.”

“Goodnight, Dean.” He giggled a little. “Dean. Heh.”

* * * 

The first few injections left Lilith sick. It wasn’t too bad – she forced herself not to puke for fear of ejecting the synthesis – but her stomach roiled and low-level nausea dogged her. Regis was so excited he wanted to keep her in the lab at all times, monitor every reaction, demand how she felt, what she felt, what was happening. She wasn’t excused from all duties, though: she’d gone to Eve for permission, a powerful and intelligent General whose true age was mystery – she’d retained the face of a young woman for as long as anyone could remember. Her reaction had been predictable:

“You can try it,” said Eve coolly. “I’m frankly sceptical concerning Regis’ work, but by all means let him try – only and so long as it does not interfere with your regular duties. Do not expect any special accommodations to be made for you.” She’d made a note on her computer and dismissed her. So Lilith soldiered on – literally, she thought with a wry smile, and attended sessions in the lab with Regis in her free hour at night. He made her drink a disgusting solution then x-rayed the inside of her body. He took scans of her brain. Then he injected her with something that felt cold but insignificant, practically chucking to himself with glee . Lilith felt a momentary anxiety – what if he _was_ nothing but a crackpot, and all the formula did was kill her slowly? She shrugged it off. There were worst fates than death, like a meaningless, boring, drawn-out existence without pride.

 

* * * 

After snagging the keys and dumping the body, Crowley took inventory of his new truck. It came with bottled water and enough canned food and energy bars to last him about five days, but was still sadly lacking in weapons. How typical that nobody would think to make a map of the desert. He drove south, purely because it was away from HQ, until a large river cut him off. Eventually, and to his surprise, the landscape started to look familiar.

“Well bugger me,” he murmured with recognition. He was approaching the test site for Leviathan, and the place looked completely abandoned. Crowley had had his immunity shots like every soldier on the project, and he figured this was a perfect place to stock up on supplies. The truck trundled through the abandoned gateposts, Crowley whistling lowly to himself in the driver’s cab, and through the deserted streets. A sudden movement from the roadside caught his eye. A thin dog was scavenging in the rubbish, fur matted and sparse. It’s ears pricked up and it turned to the truck, tail thumping against its hind quarters.

Crowley was a hard man with a healthy disdain for other humans, but he did, it must be admitted, have a soft spot for dogs. He’d had a dog as a child – or rather, a dog had hung around the base where his parents were stationed, and he’d had a rapport with her of sorts. Not that he’d mourned when she died, or anything, but he’d appreciated her company. This dog sort of reminded him of Dagger – as he’d called her, he remembered with a grin – the same tan color and short fur, long legs and pointed muzzle. It was larger than her, tall and big-boned, and as it revealed more of itself, he saw that it was male. _Very_ male, as a matter of fact. Crowley’s eyebrows lifted a little: yikes. The dog slapped his tail against his thighs again.

“Get in then,” Crowley said, opening the door to the cab. The dog was wary, but interested, sniffing the air, approaching then backing off. Crowley pulled the tab on one of the cans of meat and emptied it onto the ground. The dog darted forwards, unable to resist, and wolfed the meat in about two bites. He looked up at Crowley and wagged again. Crowley opened a second can of meat – sentimental bastard – and within minutes, the dog was fawning all over him. It took up the seat on the passenger side as though it had been in a truck before, panting happily.

“Cerberus,” said Crowley abruptly. “I did find you in hell,” and chuckled at his own cleverness. He found himself reaching out to ruffle the dog’s ears, and it was with a slightly improved mood that he parked by a large intact house. “Let’s put your scavenging skills to use, boy,” he instructed the dog, who appeared to understand. But in vain: the house was stripped. Empty. “Hm,” said Crowley. “Seems someone beat us to this one.” He reached for the handle of his knife and wished for a gun.  
The next house was empty too. And the next.

“What d’you say we blow this town?” Crowley asked Cerberus, who made no objection, but suddenly turned his head and barked. Crowley followed his gaze to see a blonde girl, maybe twenty, and a bald man slightly older, both carrying bags. Both looked healthy – as healthy as ghosts ever looked – and their clothes were surprisingly clean.

“Hey!” the girl waved frantically. “Hey, you! We’ve got a survivor’s camp – wait, are you sick?” and stopped herself abruptly.

It was as good a bet as any. “Not sick,” Crowley answered, holding his palms up in an innocent gesture. “Just lost.”

The older Ghost put his hand on the girl’s shoulder and conferred with her for a second. 

“Where are you from?” called the man after a moment.

“Up North,” Crowley answered. “My town was decimated.”

“Show us your arm.”

Crowley got out of the truck, moving slowly, and displayed his unscarred forearm to the Ghosts. Cerberus whined, high and anxious. The girl looked sorry for him.  
“Alright, you can come back with us,” said the man. “We got a base. Some supplies. There’s about fifty of us left – everyone else was killed by a Resistance weapon.”  
Only fifty, Crowley mused in mild surprise. Combat Barbie hadn’t done too badly.

“We’re moving on though,” said the girl ghost. “Somewhere better. Some have already left and-”

“Becky,” the man reprimanded. Then, “Name’s Nathan,” he nodded shortly to Crowley.

“Jack,” Crowley improvised. It was a good name.

“Becky,” said the blonde girl. “We can feed him too,” she pointed to the dog, who wagged his tail as though he understood.

“I’m sure neither of us will refuse,” Crowley made a polite little bow to her. Nathan frowned:

“You have a strange accent.”

“My family were nomads for generations,” Crowley shrugged. “Picked up all sorts.”

“Yeah?” Nathan looked vaguely interested. “Same here.”

“It’s a hard life, but a free one,” Crowley mused romantically.

Cerberus wuffed and looked appealing.

TBC


	10. Chapter 10

Losing two out of ten wasn’t bad – it wasn’t great, but given the frankly suicidal scheme of leading Ghosts across the Badlands in search of a mythical base, it was better than Dean expected. One called Hannah broke a leg in a way that would have required amputation. Dean did as promised and gave her a painless exit. Her partner Riley ate a bullet within the hour. Dean wasn’t one to question that decision.

Rosemary insisted on a proper sendoff. They laid the bodies side by side in a shallow ditch. She then imposed upon those who had known the dead best to ‘say a few words’, and though it took time and energy, Dean realized later that he was thankful to her. You started dispensing with that sort of thing, and where did it end?

“Stop,” Chuck said suddenly. They’d been walking for eight days, and Dean was starting to have vague ideas about what they’d do if the vision-base didn’t exist. Chuck stood still, eyes wide, surer than Dean had ever seen him: “We’re close.” He closed his eyes, paused, and said, 

“What are our co-ordinates right now?”

Dean consulted the compass he’d bartered for months ago, and told him.

“No,” Chuck shook his head. “That’s off. We need to move South. It’s not far now. Another day.”

Dean gripped Chuck’s arm and pulled him in quietly: “You’d better be sure about this.”  
Clear, and totally unlike himself, Chuck said, “I am.”

When the shadowed lines of the State base appeared on the horizon, three Ghosts fell to their knees, Becky covered her mouth with her hand and stifled a small sob, and Chuck swallowed hard, like himself again, jumpy and unsure.

“Set up there,” Dean told Chuck and Rosemary, indicated a ridge of rocks that provided a modicum of cover. “I’ll check it out and report back.”

“Be careful,” Becky said, wide-eyed. Dean nodded shortly.

When the Ghosts were covered, he started to move cautiously toward the site, one hand on his gun, muscle memory aligning his body in ways that would never change. As he neared, he relaxed slightly: whatever this base was, it clearly wasn’t functioning. The wire fencing was broken down, the watchtower empty, no lights on or sensors moving. The side door he approached swung open easily.

Inside was darkness. The structure of the corridors was similar to the Resistance base that had manufactured Leviathan, and Dean was not immune to the irony. He tried the first light switch he found, and nothing happened. No electricity meant no locks. Holding his gun in front of him, Dean started to explore the rooms.

It was a standard setup: a lot of bunks, kitchen and mess hall, offices, armoury: Jackpot. Some nice guns here, mostly needing ammo, but still a windfall. Dean felt a brief wave of nostalgia. The State had betrayed him, betrayed Sam, but it had also made him into the soldier he was, and everything here was familiar. Simpler times. There was nothing in food storage but a sack of flour, overrun with bugs. A bar of white soap, stamped with the insignia of the State, had welded itself to a shelf in the showers, and that struck him profoundly, a little icon from another life. In a moment of indulgence, he leaned in and smelled it: memories as sharp as if yesterday’s.

Finally there was nowhere left to check but the sleeping quarters. He shoved each door back, heavy and cumbersome without electricity, and made thorough surveys of each impersonal room: bunk, wardrobe, and side-table. Window if you were lucky. It wasn’t that he got careless – in this mode, Dean never was – so much as he stopped expecting anyone.

In the fourth room of the second corridor, a State soldier was sitting cross-legged on the bunk, playing solitaire.

Dean stopped short, gun out in front of him. The soldier looked up, and blinked at Dean with the bluest eyes he had ever seen on a human, the color so saturated Dean suspected it was engineered. The eyes were also infinitely sad, and a little vague. Apart from the eyes he was unremarkable – pale-skinned and dark haired, of indeterminate age and quite lightly built.

“Only one?” he asked. His voice was low and gravelly, as though he didn’t use it very often. 

“Well, I suppose I’m not much of a threat.” He set down his cards and turned fully to face Dean – to face the gun. “Go on then.”

Dean narrowed his eyes. This guy was clearly a sandwich short of a picnic, and the safest and neatest thing to do would be to kill him as he expected, but Dean had never been much for unnecessary executions.

“You alone here?” he asked instead of firing.

The man just blinked and tilted his head to the side like a curious animal. Jeez, those eyes. They were more than a little creepy, actually.

“What’s your name?” Dean tried.

“Castiel.” 

Dean snorted. 

“My parents were very devout,” said the man with a slightly offended air. “Castiel is the name   
of an apocryphal angel.” He folded his hands in his lap, primly, and Dean lowered his gun.  
“What happened to the base?” he asked.

“They left,” said Castiel mournfully. “They all left.”

“Riiight…” Dean blew his breath out. “So, what are you doing here?”

“I was waiting.”

“For….?”

“For them to send someone to kill me.”

Aw, crap. There was now officially no way Dean could ice this guy. He was like a demented – martyr or something. Dean didn’t know what. An innocent.

“Well, I ain’t from the State,” Dean said. “I’m – a Ghost, I guess. I got some people gonna move in here, fix this place up.”

Castiel frowned. “Why would you do that?”

“Because it’s a safe stronghold with a water supply and generators we can fix. You got a problem with that?”

Castiel shook his head slowly. Dean wasn’t sure he understood.

“So…you could leave?” He suggested, but immediately felt bad: sending the guy into the   
Badlands with his brains all scrambled would just be a crueller death.

“Why?” Castiel’s tone was genuine curiosity.

“Or not, I guess,” Dean sighed. “Alright, stand up and strip,” he gestured half-heartedly with his gun. The man responded promptly, as though he’d been expecting that all along, unzipped his pants and dropped them and shrugged out of his shirt. Dean swallowed. He’d seen a lot of scar tissue in his life, his own and other people’s, but burns were always a special sort of cringe. Castiel had a lot of burn scars. Covering most of his body, actually. And he wasn’t concealing weapons of any kind.

“Explosion?” Dean asked.

“Where?” Castiel replied.

Dean sighed. “Alright, get dressed again.”

Castiel paused, frowning, with his shirt in one hand and his pants crumpled on the floor at his feet. 

“Dude, get dressed,” Dean gestured impatiently. The truth was the scars were freaking him out a bit. 

“I can – uh – turn around if you want.” Even when your interrogator had already seen everything, it sometimes helped give a little of your dignity back.

“Alright,” Castiel said uncertainly, and dressed, one hand on the wall to steady himself as he stepped back into his trousers. He was skinny, and didn’t have the muscle definition of active duty.

“So how long have you been here?” Dean couldn’t help asking.

Castiel just looked at him.

“Right, no electricity, no calendar,” Dean said. “Sorry. Uh…I’m gonna check out the rest of the base. You come with me.”

Castiel nodded as though that made sense to him, and they made short work of the few remaining quarters. 

“What have you been eating?” Dean asked curiously.

“The stores,” Castiel said.

“But there’s nothing left.”

“That’s alright, they’ll send someone to kill me soon.”

“Yeah…” Crap. Castiel was a liability whichever way you looked at it, but sending him out to die wouldn’t deter any State troops that were already on their way, though there was one thing he could do. Should’ve done it already, actually. “Hey Cas, give me your arm.”

“Cas?” a brief quirk of something like a smile. Dean frowned. He hadn’t known he was going to say that.

“Well I’m not calling you Castiel,” he said gruffly. “At least Cas could be short for Casper. Now hold your arm out.”

Castiel did so, and Dean rolled his sleeve up. His skin was cool, shiny hairless scar tissue streaking it in patterns like pools and rivers, strangely inhuman to touch. It took Dean a moment to locate the identichip incision amongst all the other scars, but the removal went rapidly, and Castiel didn’t even flinch. Dean poured alcohol from his backpack over the small wound and tied it off with a strip of cloth. He crushed the chip under his boot. Déjà vu.  
“This is highly illegal,” said Cas quietly, and when Dean looked up, he was definitely smiling.

Not all the Ghosts were too happy about Castiel’s presence, though Rosemary clearly felt sorry for him, and Becky was all over him like a hen with a fluffy chick. Chuck pronounced that he couldn’t sense animosity from him, at which Castiel gave Chuck that inscrutable blink.  
It was only after they’d unpacked their meagre things and located the (yes, working) water supply, that Dean realized he hadn’t thought of Sam in several hours.

 

* * *

Sam received odd flickers of feeling from Chuck – not enough to be called communication, but enough that he felt reasonably sure the expedition had not met with disaster. Once there was sadness, but no horror in it, and the next almost optimistic. He wished he could sense Dean, or somehow ask Chuck to put Dean on the line like some kind of psychic telephone, but the connection was nowhere near strong enough.

He missed Dean. He even missed Becky a little bit. Though he could have done without the odd character she’d dropped off the afternoon before leaving – a shortish Ghost with a peculiar accent and a gleam in his quick dark eyes Sam didn’t like. He brought a dog with him. Sam liked dogs, the few he’d encountered since leaving the State, but this one slunk close to its master’s legs, its allegiance more than clear.

“This is Sam, he’ll take care of you,” Becky had said to the stranger, before darting off to continue preparations for leaving. And Sam had been left with this Jack character, whose face he could swear flashed surprised for the briefest of seconds upon meeting Sam, before the slick smile slipped back into place and he shook Sam’s hand:

“Much obliged, sir.”

“Is there anything you can do? Any special skills?” Sam didn’t use his height advantage in power play very often, but something about this guy made him draw himself up before him.

“Hunting and gathering, I suppose,” said Jack, still smiling. “Not too bad with mechanics.”

“Alright,” Sam nodded. “When you’ve eaten, go help the group in the back yard working on the vehicles.” Getting one of the cars functional before the water ran out was a long shot, but until Sam got some kind of confirmation from Chuck that they’d found the base there was little else they could do. There were five children at the base, including an infant, and three elderly including Bobby who would not make the trip on foot. Sam knew it and Bobby knew it, but neither brought it up.

“Will do,” said the new Ghost, and his dog thumped his tail against his legs. Sam started to exit the kitchen, and then looked back. Jack was looking back at him too, over his shoulder.

* * *

Crowley’s mind raced even as he turned the spanner in mindless rotations. There was no doubt in his mind. This was the guy – the one that had penetrated the old base, the one old Nick and his cohorts were convinced had some kind of special powers. Crowley had seen Ruby’s video. It could be real. It could be some kind of fancy manipulation. Crowley didn’t care. Didn’t matter. The point was the Resistance perceived him as having power. And that gave Crowley power too.

What he needed was a contact in the Resistance. Some of these Ghosts must be ex-R, and there was a chance some were less disgraced then he. What he needed was allies. As usual.  
The first thing to do was take their measure, and ingratiate himself as fast as possible. Ghosts were not complex creatures, and Cerberus helped. A lot of them seemed to remember the dog hanging round the town from ‘before’. And the way to ingratiate yourself with the masses was to get in with a figure they respected.

They called the old guy who owned the place doctor, so Crowley pretended the half-healed wounds he’d inflicted on his chest were burning and itching.

“Don’t look infected,” grunted the old guy. “Clean ‘em up with some of this,” and shuffled over to his shelf of medicines. He handed Crowley a bottle of something brown and tinted.

“Thanks doc,” said Crowley with mock-gratefulness.

“Call me Bobby.”

And that was something.

That night, the night of his second day at the temporary base, he took his rations of food and went to sit with a group of Ghosts who had made up a campfire in the junkyard. Their dirty bodies were too close for comfort, but he was already starting to feel immune to them. They were talking about the Leviathan-dead. And Chuck. Sam. He quickly gathered the deal with this prophet-character, and marked him as a possibility, but unfortunately he had left last night with the blonde bimbo. Doc Decrepit was ex-State, so no-go. They also talked about Sam:

“Well who’d have thought,” Crowley said, wide-eyed. “A revolutionary leader in our midst.”  
A few of the Ghosts nodded, but one said, ‘Hm’. Crowley’s eyes went to her directly. A woman in her thirties, lank brown hair tied back in a rough ponytail. He raised his eyebrows at her, all innocence.

“Haven’t seen much evidence is all I’m saying,” she remarked. Another Ghost glared at her:

“He ended the plague.”

“Temporarily.”

“He’s our best hope.”

“Maybe. Since Christian…died.”

Crowley’s brain ticked rapidly.

“Christian died in the plague?”

“Sam killed him.” The woman’s level blue eyes met his own. “Said he was a threat.”

“Lydia,” said another Ghost sharply. “You know Christian was unbalanced. Everybody knows that.”

“I know he was ambitious,” said Lydia grimly, and the others turned their faces away. Crowley thought: ‘Bingo’.

TBC


	11. Chapter 11

“We shouldn’t leave him alone,” said Becky.

The first meal at the new base was rations from their packs, as they sat in a circle on the floor of the storage room. The new and ample water supply let them rehydrate some grains, and Dean felt fuller than he had since setting out. As Becky spoke she was eyeing Cas, who was sitting in a corner tracing a pattern on the stone floor. Dean and Becky had offered him ration bars which he’d accepted but made no move to open. 

“Damn right,” spoke up Hamid. “He could go off at any second.”

“Or sell us out,” said Rachel, another of the women: “I’m still not convinced he isn’t a spy.”

“Don’t talk about him like he isn’t here,” said Becky.

“Becky,” said Rosemary: “Look at him. Here would definitely be an overstatement.”

Sure enough, Castiel appeared to be taking no notice of them at all.

“What I meant,” said Becky, ignoring Rosemary, “Was that someone should room with him to make sure he’s okay.”

“Why don’t you?” Hamid asked her.

“No, Dean should,” said Rachel. “He wants to keep the guy here, and he’s best prepared if he tries anything.”

“Hey, whatever,” Dean shrugged, but the truth was he’d kind of been planning on it anyway. Cas intrigued him and kept his mind occupied enough that he didn’t miss Sam so intently.   
“Ain’t like I get any privacy to miss.”

They all ate in silence for a moment.

“So I thought this place was supposed to be by the ocean,” Dean said to Chuck. “That’s what your vision said, right? Sea all around us?”

Chuck shrugged. “That’s what I saw. Guess that part was wrong.”

“It’s out there,” everyone jumped as Castiel spoke suddenly. They all turned to look at him. “They drained the delta,” Castiel went on calmly, as though he’d been in the conversation all along. “Haven’t you noticed the ground?”

Dean frowned, thinking. Yes, the base was set in a dip, recessed ground, which at the time he’d thought was natural. Perhaps it wasn’t.

“There was delicate work here,” Castiel said. “If they needed to get rid of us, they could pierce the dam and flood the delta again.”

“Charming,” Chuck grimaced. “So, uh, Cas…. you’re ex-State? Me too. Feels good to be free of the old ball and chain, huh?” he indicated his forearm. Castiel raised his eyes and looked   
directly at Chuck.

“Faith is a state of being,” he said coolly, then returned his gaze to the floor. Chuck gulped. Hamid and Rachel exchanged significant looks.

Everyone was exhausted, and after the meal and quick cold showers, they retired to the quarters they had claimed individually or in pairs. Chuck and Becky, Dean noted with approval, had taken up together. Chuck needed someone, and Becky needed to stop obsessing over Sam. He returned from the showers to the room he had found Castiel in – the soldier was standing in the middle of the floor, shirtless with his hands behind his back.

“Uh…” said Dean.

Castiel continued to stare at the floor. Dean started getting ready for bed. He sincerely hoped Castiel was not going to stand there all night.

After several moments, Cas peeked sideways. Dean looked back. Castiel returned his eyes to the floor at once.

Dean blew out his breath. “What are you doing?” he asked.

“I am…” In contradiction to his posture, Castiel sounded unsure. “You are here now.”

“I noticed.”

“I am waiting to be disciplined.”

Dean winced. He’d been deliberately avoiding looking at the scars, but the pink shiny skin   
was obvious even in the poor light from his wind-up torch. 

“I told you already, I’m not State,” Dean said patiently. “Neither are you anymore.” He tapped the chip removal scar on his forearm. “I’m not gonna discipline you. I’m going to bed.” With that, the obvious problem occurred to him – there was only one bunk. The bed didn’t look like anyone had slept in it for months, but Dean still felt obligated to get his bedroll out – Castiel was here first, after all. He undressed with his back to the soldier and got under the covers. Castiel had dropped the posture, but was still standing in the middle of the room as though waiting for something.

“Look, would you sit down or something?” Dean said: “You’re kind of weirding me out.” Cas sat immediately on the edge of the bunk. Huh. “How about lying down?” Dean asked. It was very late and he wanted to put the light out. Castiel obeyed the instruction. Okay that was – creepy, but useful. “Go to sleep,” Dean instructed, and turned the torch off. He closed his eyes and wished he could obey himself.

* * *

The smart thing to do would be ignore Castiel as much as possible, but Dean had never prided himself on being smart. Also, Cas could be useful, if given specific and clear instructions, and if Dean didn’t instruct him he did nothing. Within 72 hours, utilizing Cas’s knowledge, the bar lights flickered to life, to weak cheers from everyone in the compound. 

“And on the third day there was light,” said Dean facetiously. 

“The evening and the morning were the third day,” Cas corrected, frowning. “God created light in the beginning. Most authorities believe that ‘evening’ and ‘morning’, in the Hebrew, refer to the creation of time marked by periods of light, which light as a concept predates. Light is the beginning of creation.”

“Hm.” Dean was busy with the insulation on the second external generator – one good rainstorm and half the base would be back to darkness at the moment. Most of the Ghosts were out foraging, but he kept Castiel around – in case he needed his instruction on where to find things, he told himself. “You believe that stuff?” he pushed himself out from under the bulky generator and squinted. Castiel was sitting primly in the dirt with his back against the wall. 

“What stuff?” Castiel blinked.

“You know……the State stuff…big daddy up there…” Dean waved desultorily towards the sky.

“In God?” Cas looked mortified. “Of course I do. What else is there?”

“Ah.” So that’s how it is. 

“I was ex-communicated for believing that the State had strayed from God’s will,” Castiel went on calmly.

“Oh!” said Dean. “Um, right. Never heard of that scenario before.”

“You’ve met others?” Castiel looked at him wide-eyed. This was the most he had spoken since Dean had met him. Dean just held up his forearm and indicated the chip-removal scar. Castiel pressed his lips together and dropped his eyes. “God has not abandoned us,” he said firmly. 

“Um, okay.”

“You have doubts.” Those creepy sad blue eyes pinned Dean momentarily. “I have known doubt too. But God will never abandon us.”

Dean coughed. He wanted to say that it looked like God had abandoned poor Cas pretty thoroughly, getting out when his henchmen did. Castiel said,

“Our perspective is slight in this vale of sorrows.”

“Oh, jeez!” Dean jerked and ducked back under the generator. “Don’t do that! You’re not a psychic are you?”

“No,” Cas said with a sad smile.

“So you’re a heretic, they tried to torture you into believing them, and when they didn’t work, why didn’t they kill you?” Dean as trying to put the pieces together. Cas looked briefly guilty and didn’t answer.

“Alright,” Dean shrugged. “So, any chance there’s some insulating tape around here?”

* * * 

By then end of his second week at the base, Crowley and a mechanic had one of the cars running. More or less. It was mostly Crowley’s work, and the mechanic, Liam didn’t try to steal his glory. The Ghosts, crowded into the kitchen, toasted him with some piss-poor beer. Even Sam offered him a smile. Then:

“I have an announcement to make,” he said. The Ghosts all turned to their leader.

“We need to leave in the morning then,” Sam said: “Everyone who’s coming.”

“Have you spoken to Chuck?” asked one of them eagerly.

“Yes,” Sam said. “They found it.” The Ghosts all started to talk at once, excited and overwhelmed. Some got tears in their eyes or put their hands to their mouths. Sam was lying, or at least not telling the whole truth: as an expert in the art, Crowley could tell precisely the moment at which the boy made the decision to lie and did so. He looked tired, Crowley noted too, unshaven and with shadows under his eyes. He filed the information for future usage.

“Are they all alive?” asked one of the women.

Sam hesitated. “I couldn’t tell,” he said at last. “Or Chuck couldn’t tell me. But now that we have a vehicle we need to get going. Judging by the map and the progress they’ve made in 2 weeks I’m estimating a 200 mile journey. It’ll still be a day’s drive in what we’ve got – we’re not risking a breakdown in the middle of the badlands.” Hah. They were risking a breakdown simply by taking the vehicle out there. Crowley smiled politely, his respect for the boy increasing a little bit. All the Ghosts were nodding. 

“This first trip, I’ll take Bobby and Sophia with the children.” He gestured to the woman that seemed to be caring for them the most – the baby was hers, apparently, and the little ones had attached themselves. “Jack, you come too: we need a mechanic with us and a mechanic here to work on the other cars,” here his gaze went to Liam. Crowley smiled. “And…”  
“Lydia,” Crowley suggested. It was a risk – he was new enough here that suggestions were audacious – but Lydia too was ex-State, one of the few remaining, and knew her way around most standard weapons. Sam raised his eyebrows at Lydia in question. She thought for a moment, then nodded shortly.

Crowley loved being smart.

* * *

 

Sam dreamed of the blonde woman.

She was slender and fox-eyed, predatory, and carried herself with an intelligence that made the vixen act one of total calculation. She was kissing him, hard forcing tongue, and her hands were like brands on his sides. He didn’t want her to, but God, she was powerful, and her powers were waking the thing in him, stronger. 

“Why can’t you believe?” she pulled back, asked him fiercely, and then, spat in his face. He jerked awake, and the moisture on his face was his own sweat. He flung an arm out automatically for Dean, but of course the bed was empty.

He could still feel the heat of her hands.

In the morning, he tried to contact Chuck, failed, and checked that the Ghosts who were scheduled to leave were fully organized. The van was a six-seater, but two of the seats were missing at the back, and Sophia had arranged the little kids there with blankets.

“Okay, Jack and I will trade off driving, Lydia in the back with Sophia, I’ll sit up front to navigate when I’m not driving, Bobby can take the middle seats and we’ll put supplies-”

“Just supplies,” Bobby cut him off. He had hobbled out to the yard with the rest of them, squinting in the early sun. he was stone sober and hunched over the cane he used sometimes, mouth set in defiant line.

“But, uh, where will you sit?” Sam asked dumbly.

“Back here in the same chair I always sit,” Bobby said. “I ain’t going.”

Silence.

“Boy, this has been my home more years than you been alive,” Bobby sighed finally. “You know and I know I ain’t got much longer in this life. Best thing for me to do is just stay here, get drunk, and keep an eye on the rest of these poor saps when you ain’t around to do it.”

“But…” Sam said. “You’re our doctor.”

“Sophia was a nurse,” Bobby shrugged. Sophia nodded. “I been teachin her a thing or two, and with the supplies we get out here, there’s nothin’ I could do for folk that she couldn’t.”

“But you’ll die here,” said Sam.

“That’s the plan,” said Bobby. “Better than dyin on the road and slowin the rest of you down.”

“You wouldn’t be-“

“Kid,” Bobby cut him off. “I ain’t leavin.”

Sam stared at Bobby. Bobby stared back. 

“Well,” Sam said at last. “If that’s your decision.”

Bobby nodded shortly, then before Sam could hesitate, pulled him in for a rough hug. Sam had to bend down considerably, and he realized the old man was more stooped than he had been. In Sam’s ear, Bobby said,

“Look out for your boy.”

Sam pulled back and met his eyes. Bobby regarded him evenly.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Bobby said dryly, “I appreciate y’all sparing me the details. But all I know is, Dean is more alive now than he has been in all the years I’ve known him. Any scrap of happiness folks can grab in this life, I say take it and hold on to it.”

Sam felt tears prick at his eyes. “Thank you,” he said.

“Now go on, get out of here,” Bobby said. “Y’aint got all day.”

Sam nodded jerkily, and got into the front seat beside Liam. Just before they turned the corner, he looked back, Bobby’s stooped figure dark in the dawn light. 

* * *

“They’re on their way,” Chuck sat upright in his bunk and blinked.

“Really? That’s awesome!” Becky sat up next to him, immediately wide awake. “What did you see?”

Chuck frowned. “It was flashes, mostly. It’s hard to describe. They’re on their way but…”  
Becky grabbed his hand.

“Something’s wrong. No, not wrong. Sad.”

“Is everyone okay?” She meant ‘Is Sam okay?’. Chuck smiled to himself. He could hardly blame her, even though she was sort of his girlfriend now.

“Yeah he’s fine,” Chuck said. “If he was dead I wouldn’t be getting anything.”

“Are you okay?” Becky frowned at him.

“Uh – yeah, sure I guess. I could use a drink…”

“No drinking,” Becky said firmly. “We need the alcohol to disinfect stuff. Besides…” she lay back down and tugged him to lay beside her. “It’s bad for you.”

Chuck snorted.

“I know you don’t care,” she wrapped her arms around him, affectionate: “But I don’t want you to die of liver failure.”

“Yes boss,” said Chuck drily.

“You know it,” she squeezed him briefly and wriggled a bit, something she did when she was exicted. “Oh I can’t wait till everyone gets here. Then maybe we’ll start, like, training.”

“Becks, I don’t think Sam and Dean want to lead a war on the State, you know.”

“But they can’t see the future,” she said somberly. “You can.”


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NB: refs to sexual violence.

“So tell me,” said Crowley to Lydia, having gotten her away from the van for a moment whilst Liam checked the oil, and the kids were fed, “How’s a smart girl like you end up in a place like this?”

“Accident of birth,” she returned dryly. Cerberus was sitting next to her, panting happily. She scruffed his head. “But you,” she studied Jack. “You’re not a Ghost.”  
Crowley raised his eyebrows.

“I mean you weren’t always a Ghost,” she said, raising a hand to shield her eyes. “You don’t talk like one. You don’t _move_ like one.” 

It was always better to let people think they’d come to ideas on their own. She was sitting on a boulder with her hands in her lap, and Crowley was standing, pretending to consider the horizon.

“You were State,” she guessed. “A soldier.”

“A soldier, yes,” Crowley smiled. “Not State.”

Her eyes widened in alarm.

“Not everyone supported Leviathan, my dear.” That was true.

Lydia frowned, lines cutting deeply into her forehead and mouth. Crowley wondered how old she was. One could never tell, with these things. The way they lived.

“So you were…exiled?”

“I loved the Resistance,” Crowley closed his eyes briefly – not long enough to lose any control of the situation, just enough to signify pain. “But some of us….lost our way. Prepared to do anything to see the end of the State. I understand that burning. I do. The State must fall. But not at the price of innocent lives.” Silently, he applauded himself.  
Lydia bit her lip.

“I wish to God there was a way I could go back,” he went on. “If I had the leverage. Something to…offer.”

Yes, it was always best when they thought your ideas were their own.

“How would the Resistance feel,” said Lydia carefully. “About a gift?”

“The Council is usually open to bribery.”

“Alright.” Lydia made her move, stood up and grabbed his arm. “Sam is one of them. Their Weapons. Chuck said he was bioengineered, and they want him back. Suppose we give them him.”

“Amnesty for life, I would say,” Crowley grinned. “At the very least. More likely a position of power for both of us.”

Lydia was nodding. “The State killed my family,” she said rapidly. “A dirty bomb.”  
“We may never get a better chance than this to do something with our lives,” Crowley said.

“Or to _have_ a life,” Lydia looked at him like he was a little crazy.

“Well, that too.” Crowley pretended to consider. “It’s the right thing to do. But it will be dangerous. Not everyone on the Council believes in the Weapons program.”

“Do you know anyone who does for sure?”

“I do, as a matter of fact.” 

Lydia blew out her breath. “I have nothing here. Nothing to live for.”

Crowley waited.

“How would we do it?” She raised her eyes to him. He smiled. 

 

* * * 

 

Sam frowned as the engine made another groan of protest. He believed he knew where they were going. Not exactly, but near enough. The direction was correct. Jack, who was driving now, frowned:

“Gonna have to stop again. Go under the hood.”

“Alright,” sighed Sam, and ducked to get out of the car – 

\- when he stood up again, Jack stood on the other side of the vehicle with a gun aimed casually at his head.

“Not so fast, squire,” he said. One of the children made a stifled sound – Sam turned to see Lydia with both guns held ready, one aimed at Sophia’s head and the other into the cluster of children. The dog was crouched low beside Jack, staring at Sam and flashing his fangs in solidarity with his master.

“Lydia,” Sam appealed.

“Nobody has to get hurt here,” she said with difficulty.

Sam sought within himself, gauging his reserves of power.

“Try anything,” said Jack calmly, “and you’ll be dealing with brains splattered all over the interior. I’m reasonably sure you can’t manage two things at once. Attack me, she shoots them. Attack her, I shoot you. Got it?”

“What do you want?” Sam asked tightly. 

“Oh, what I always want,” Jack smiled, wolf-like: “Self-advancement.” He casually laid a hand on the dog’s flank. 

“You’re a Weapon,” Lydia broke in. She spoke rapidly: “Chuck said so. We’re gonna hand you  
over to the Resistance, so they take us in. Or take me in. Take Jack _back_.”  


Jack rolled his eyes. “Well there goes the mystery and style,” he muttered. “By the way, you can call me Crowley,” he said in his normal voice. “Jack was a pseudonym and I’m rather sick of it.”

One of the children sobbed. Sophia said, “shh, shh,” urgently, her dark eyes wide and fearful as she glanced from Sam to their assailants. Sam blew out his breath. 

“Look,” he appealed. “Don’t be stupid. The Resistance won’t take you back. One mistake and you’re done. They’ll execute you.”

“Sam Sam Sam,” Jack – Crowley – smirked. “Don’t be so modest. You really have no idea of your own value. In some quarters.”

“If I go with you, what happens to them?” Sam indicated the group in the back of the truck. “You just leave them here to die?”

“Not at all,” Crowley said, mock-offended. “I am not a barbarian, sir. You come quietly, and Lydia here will take the rats on to the Base. She knows how to read a map. There, they’ll report the _tragic_ news of our noble deaths on the journey. Of course, should they implicate otherwise, she’ll blow their brains out,” Crowley shrugged.

Sam’s mind raced. If he could separate Crowley and Lydia, he’d only be up against one gun. He could possibly pull something like he’d done with Christian. If he said no, Crowley could just kill them all now.

“Alright,” he said finally.

“Excellent.” Still aiming the gun with one hand, Crowley produced a pair of handcuffs with the other. “A little trade I made back in town,” he said casually. “Hands out.” Lydia turned her gun on Sam while Crowley cuffed him. “A steel alloy,” Crowley went on, “Known to have a certain – dampening effect – on psychics.” Sam’s heart sank. He had no idea whether that was true or not. But he’d learned enough about his abilities to know that if he doubted them, they wouldn’t work. They came from a place of conviction. The psychological trickery of the cuffs was more than sufficient. Mouth curling in a sneer, he held his wrists out. Crowley cuffed him with a click.

“Kill ‘em,” he ordered Lydia, with a gesture of his head towards the hostages.

“What? No!” Sam exclaimed, as Sophia sobbed openly and the baby started to cry.

“But, I thought,” Lydia wavered. Crowley rolled his eyes, impatient.

“Oh come off it woman,” he snapped. “You didn’t _really_ think I was going to leave a liability.” He was still aiming a gun at Sam’s head, and Sam tried for all he was worth to summon his powers, but nothing happened. He closed his eyes, heard Lydia breathe, and the screams of the hostages cut off abruptly in burst of fire. He felt sick.

“That’s more like it,” said Crowley with satisfaction, and Sam had no warning before something hard and blunt came down on the back of his skull, he saw stars briefly, and then darkness.

 

* * *

 

“So they’re well out of cell phone reception, but as a courtesy, the General says that Briggs can write a farewell letter to his wife before they execute him. So he writes, ‘this is to let you know, I was shot yesterday at blah blah blah’, figuring by the time she reads it, he will be. The pardon comes through at the last minute. He gets home, the poor bastard, and walks in on her with her new _husband_ , getting down to business. He draws his gun, shoots them both, and was executed the next day.” Dean slid his eyes across to Castiel. “True story.”

Castiel smiled a little bit, whether at the anecdote or something inside his head. They were hanging out at a crossroads a mile or so from the Base, a convergence of dirt tracks used by the Ghosts for trade. They had a selection of guns from the storeroom, having selected the best for themselves and put the rest aside for barter. All the guns in the world were no good if you didn’t have anything to fire. They also needed more food. But the roads had been quiet for most of the morning, and the one truck that had passed by wanted no business.

“You know Sammy doesn’t like to hear this stuff,” Dean went on. “About the army. Hey, Cas, did they do something to your brain to make you like this? I mean, physically?” He was long past expecting an answer. He’d discovered it was pretty much impossible to offend Castiel, which made him excellent to talk to, though he wasn’t much for returning any kind of conversation. 

“Not specifically,” said Castiel, and Dean raised his eyebrows.

“I am not – I was unable to withstand ordinary measures,” said Cas quietly. “I am not strong.”

“Hey,” Dean frowned. “You rebelled against the State’s groupthink. That’s pretty strong if you ask me.”

Castiel smiled sadly.

Dean returned his eyes to the horizon. After a moment, he nudged Castiel with the butt of his gun. “Truck,” he said. Then: “No – 4x4,” a moment later. Castiel frowned and stood up straight, suddenly. His finger curled reflexively on his trigger, and for an instant Dean had a glimpse of the soldier he must have been once.

“They’re not Ghosts,” Castiel said grimly. “We need cover.”

As the vehicle came closer, Dean recognised the dark sleek lines of a Resistance carrier. It was small – designed for stealth missions, and probably held four people including the driver. He gestured with his gun to a patch of trees several meters back from the side of the road. He and Cas made silently for them. as the cars approached, Dean could make out the emblem of the Resistance sprayed large on the driver-side door of the lead car: a circle containing an abstract bird rising out of a ball of flame. Phoenix. It stirred up an old hatred, deep in him – for everything he now knew and despised about the State, his hatred for the Resistance was at a more visceral level. It had damned his own family, after all.

“What d’you think?” he said to Cas.

“No doubt they have much that would be of value to us,” Castiel said without expression.

“Shoot out the tyres?”

“That would seem to be the most sensible option.”

The car trundled into their line of fire. Dean glanced at Castiel briefly. He barely had to signal. In tandem, they raised their guns, sighted, and blew out both tyres on the near side of the carrier. With a screech of metal the vehicle lurched to one side, tipped, and Dean caught a glimpse of the driver, a pale man, desperately fighting with the wheel. The carrier went over anyway, metal crunching, and Dean heard a scream. The windows were of course bulletproof, and they didn’t have the kind of ammo that would pierce it. Conversely, the car’s inhabitants couldn’t fire back at them. but the driver’s door window had displaced on impact, and Dean was out of the cover and firing into his face before he’d had the chance to recover from the crash. The front passenger was out cold, bleeding from a head wound on collision with the far window, but Dean put a bullet in her brain just in case. Castiel was at his shoulder, and to Dean’s mild surprise, he wrenched open the back door and quickly dispatched the passengers. One attempted to return fire, but his bullet clanged harmlessly off the door frame.

Smoke rose in the quiet for a second.

“Grab the stuff,” Dean said. they took weapon first, including a pleasing three boxes of ammo, then bottled water, dehydrated rations and med kit. Dean watched Cas out of the corner of his eye. All his movements were quick and practiced, face expressionless. He was - _good_ at this. Dean shook himself. What had he been expecting? You didn’t forget a life’s training in a couple of months. 

“Nice job,” he clapped Cas on the shoulder, and could’ve sworn that the look Cas returned was almost dry.

The bounty endeared Cas to the Ghosts who’d been sitting on the fence, and even Hamid gave him a wary nod a he sorted through the new ammo. It was late, and they shortly retired to their bunks. Dean tried making conversation for a while, to no avail, so he said,

“Well, I guess I’ll try going to sleep now. Gonna turn the light off, okay?”

Pause.

“Okay. G’night, Cas.” Dean clicked the torch off. Sleep was evasive. He was restless, and he missed Sam – he was worried but not panicked, because he could hardly expect them yet, and if anything terrible had happened Chuck would probably have picked up on it. He was also, frankly, frustrated. The day’s adrenalin was still in his system. He hadn’t had sex in close to three weeks, had barely even jerked off due to the constant proximity of Ghosts, and it just wanted natural for him. He wanted Sam, first, and he wanted sex with Sam, second. It wasn’t refined, but that was who he was. He’d never apologized for it. He slid his eyes across to Castiel, who appeared still and breathing evenly, and slid his hand beneath the waistband of his boxers. His dick was on board with this plan already, which was actually pretty gross, considering that Sam could theoretically be….in trouble right this moment, but hell, you didn’t live as a Guard then a Ghost without a decent ability to compartmentalize. He closed his eyes and stroked his thumb over the head of his dick, summoning an image of Sam’s mouth, his throat and torso. A small sound escaped him – he hurriedly glanced over at his roommate, but Cas had not stirred. He started to move his hand rhythmically, in time to a series of images derived from his last time with Sam (and one flicker of that girl from that time on deployment just before Hell). Co-ordinating his thumb with the movement of his wrist made an efficient job of it. Hardly a world-shaking orgasm, but enough of an endorphin burst that he could sleep afterwards. His eyes closed, and he shifted away from the unpleasant wetness of cooling semen. Fuck it, it deal with it later.

Blank. Indeterminate time passed.

He came awake as a shadow fell over him, and before he knew what was happening, he had one hand beneath the pillow whipping out his gun, cocked the trigger and aimed it in front of his face –  
\- straight between the unnaturally blue eyes of his roommate, which were wide with surprise. Dean blew out his breath.

“Jesus, Cas, what the fuck are you doing?!” his heart was trip-hammering and his voice sounded more breathless than he would like. Then he had time register the rest of it.  


Castiel was completely naked.

“I almost blew your brains out,” Dean waved the gun. He sat up, shoving Cas off him unceremoniously. Cas knelt on the floor in in a pile of twisted sheets, and blinked. And ew. There was jizz on those sheets.

“What – why were you in my bed?” Dean demanded. A creeping dread at the corner of his consciousness. ‘This isn’t then’. Dean was the one in control of this situation. He had the fucking _gun_.

“I thought….didn’t you….” Castiel hung his head. “I thought I was supposed to.”

“Oh, for….” Well, this was disgusting. On so many levels. “Look,” Dean blew his breath out. 

“No, wait, get dressed first. We’re not having this conversation with you naked.” Castiel got up hurriedly, making no attempt to cover himself, but Dean looked away whilst he put some clothes back on. Dean had made him shower and change on his second day at the compound, even donated a couple of items of clothing. “Sit down,” Dean said. “Over there,” he pointed to the bunk. That still gave Cas the advantage of height over Dean who was using the bedroll, but at least it put space between them.

“I’m gonna go out on a limb here and guess that one of your old commanders put that in your head - or used it as some kind of punishment.” He spoke rapidly, distancing himself from the meaning of the words. “But I’ll tell you this one more time: I am not here to punish you. I have a – I’m in a – I’m with someone. Committedly. He’ll be here soon. So – none of that. Just – keep to your side of the room. Got it?”

Castiel looked stricken and was refusing to meet his eyes. Dean felt like an asshole. 

“I’ll go,” Castiel said abruptly and stood up, wrapping the t-shirt around himself and grabbing his backpack from under the bed. He started to dress in day clothes.

“Wait wait, what? Go where?”

“Away,” said Castiel guiltily. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry I didn’t mean-“

“Oh, Jesus,” Dean said. “Look I get that that stuff can – mess you up. And that sometimes you feel like you’re – like you have to.”

Castiel stared at him, frozen in the act of putting on one shoe.

“Look,” Dean blew out his breath. “Once I had a CO….Zachariah. He was pretty high up in the State and all, and he….thought it was his prerogative. Treated us like his bitches. Well, me.” That was more than he’d ever said to anyone, Sam included. “And that was bullshit. Okay? You don’t have to do anything for anyone.”

Castiel continued to stare at him. Dean wasn’t getting any more explicit.

“Maybe it’s time we got separate rooms,” he said. “People trust you well enough.”

“Do you want me to go?”

“Well – no.” It was true, Dean realized with surprise. He’d kind of gotten used to having the guy around. “But I thought you might want to.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Oh. Okay. Alright then. Just – stay over there.”

“I will. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. Just go to sleep.”

His heartbeat refused to return to normal speed for a long time after that.

 

TBC

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WTF I wrote Destiel? Kind of. This isn’t even my shiiiiip. I blame Castiel for this. This degree of one-sidedness is totally canonical. He just looks at D all the time like Y WON’T U LOVE ME LIKE I LOVE YOU.


	13. Chapter 13

When Sam woke, it was to motion, and a sick feeling in his stomach. He was cuffed in the back of the car with his hands behind his back. the stench of fresh blood rose to nostrils, making him gag, and his head pounded in time with his heartbeat. 

Mercifully, they had removed the bodies.

He focused all his energies on the image of Chuck, attempting to convey what had happened. Chuck had met Crowley once, briefly, on the night before leaving, and he had known Lydia. Sam worked to convey their images and a sense of their actions. 

“Morning sunshine,” said Crowley, leaning over the front seat and aiming a gun at Sam. Lydia was driving. 

Sam sneered at him: “You’re an idiot. Do you honestly think this will work? That the Council will give you a second chance?”

“Eh, maybe not all of them. But I happen to be on intimate terms with special young lady who wields a certain…influence.”

Sam frowned. A dream-memory returned to him.

“The blonde woman,” he said slowly. “I saw her.”

“Lucky you. She’s a vicious little slag, but easy on the eyes, eh?”

Sam didn’t take the bait.

“What does she want?”

“What we all want. Power. She’ll probably kill you eventually, but not before using you for leverage.”

Sam fell silent. He could hear Dean telling him to stay awake in case he had a concussion, so he focused on watching the scenery, trying his best to figure out the direction they were headed in. Intermittently, he made desperate attempts to contact Chuck. But the knowledge of the cuffs combined with the pain in his head made it all seem hopeless, like a fantasy.

* * *

Dean sat on the flat roof of the base and watched the horizon. Clanging in the background – Hamid and another Ghost named Tia, who barely spoke, were repairing some of the tiles and pipe on an adjacent wall. Castiel was haunting him as usual, and after last night, Dean didn’t feel like making up some busy work to keep him out of the way.

“Nice shooting yesterday,” Dean told him.

Cas bowed his head in acknowledgement.

“I was, uh, surprised,” Dean said. “I mean, not that I should be. It’s just you don’t come across as the take-no-prisoners type.”

Cas blinked at him. “They were Resistance,” he said, as though that explained everything.

“Yeah I got that.”

“They are the body of Satan on earth – the evil that infects the world. Their very presence is an abomination to God.”

Hm. Sometimes Dean forgot how easy it was to drink the Kool-Aid when the State was your life.

“Oh I don’t know,” he needled. “Can’t help where you’re born. What you learn. Seems to me a pretty dirty trick on God’s part, having someone born into the Resistance, then damning them for it.”

“God created man with free will, and of that will, some chose to rebel against the State,” Cas said firmly.

“Like you.”

“That’s different.”

“How? I mean, I agree that it’s different, I’m just wondering how you see the situation.”

Cas said sharply: “Is my torment not enough for you, that you must fling my fall in my face continually?”

“Woah,” Dean held up his hands. “That’s - sorry. That’s not what I meant.”

“Then what did you mean?” 

“Just that – well, like you thought – that the Resistance is wrong, but the State might not always be right either. That’s why you rebelled, isn’t it?”

Cas pressed his lips together and folded his hands. It was hard to imagine he was the same man who had climbed into Dean’s bed naked. Dean banished the image from his mind.

“Whether I was right or wrong is immaterial. It is done,” said Cas grimly. “I can never go back.”

“Oh come on!” Dean exploded. “You can’t doubt yourself! Look what they did to you!” ‘To us’.

“But,” said Castiel. “Consider what we are without them, and what we were then.” He held Dean’s gaze.

“Fuck that!” Dean grabbed his arm, suddenly unable to restrain himself. Cas looked mildly down at the hand, and Dean loosened his grip, which was hard enough to bruise. “We’re better off without them. All of us. Me, you, Sam.”

“Sam is...your friend. The other one who is coming here.”

“Right,” Dean released Cas’s arm. “The State tortured him too. Right before we escaped. You two will be like peas in a pod. You can talk about serious shit together.”

“Two….peas?” Something that was almost a hint of a smile quirked the corner of Cas’s mouth.

“It’s an expression. Jeez, where did you grow up?” He bumped his leg teasingly against Cas’s.

“At a secure military facility.”

“Oh. Right.”

 

* * * 

“This isn’t right,” said Regis nervously. 

“What?” Lilith jerked her head to glare at him.

“Lilith, look at you. Your pulse and blood pressure are through the roof, you’re aggressive,  
anxious and irrational-“

Lilith shot a look at a rack of test tubes on the counter. They exploded. She smirked.

“Well, yes,” the doctor admitted when he came out of his crouch and removed his hands from his eyes. “That is remarkable.” His eye gleamed, something of that old excitement. “But it’s far too unreliable to have any viability as a weapon – I mean, you can’t control it.”

“I’m. Working. On it,” Lilith bit out. She was slumped in one of the study chairs, hooked up to several monitors, whilst Regis made calculations on a computer screen.

“I’m sorry,” Regis shook his head. “Believe me, Lilith, I wanted this to work.”

“It is working-”

“It’s also killing you. At the current rate of progress you’ll be dead before you gain any real control over it. Probably of a stroke, though a massive heart attack is also a possibility. Besides, you’re becoming increasingly violent, your aggression is misdirected-”  
Lilith was out of the chair and across the room in a split second. Using her powers would have been more effective, but she had nothing left after that little stunt. In the same movement she pulled the knife from her sheath and held it at Regis’ throat, pinning him against his desk. He swallowed hard, a bead of sweat tracing his Adam’s apple.

“If you want out,” she said calmly. “Then get out. But you will provide me with the materials to continue the dosage myself. If you don’t I will kill you right now.”

“You – it’s –…” the doctor swallowed again, flesh of his throat shifting against the edge of the knife, and she permitted the barest prick, one bead of red blood slipping down his neck to disappear under his collar. “It’s suicide.”

“It’s my purpose.”

“Al – alright,” Regis held up both hands, cringing backwards, but trapped against his desk. 

“Just – put the knife down.”

Lilith lowered the knife. “Serum,” she commanded. “And data.”

Regis pressed a few buttons on his computer. “I’ve emailed you everything – everything you’ve been given. Increasing at one milligram per day for the past week – since you’ve been manifesting. You’ve seen the results as well as I have. The serum is in the cabinet. The combination is 026749.”

“You’re a coward,” Lilith sneered at him. “You talk a good game, but you don’t have the integrity of your convictions.”

“I have something,” Regis said quietly. “I knew I did, and I was right. But I’m not in this to  
kill our own people.” He glanced at the knife, still in her hand.

“You just don’t want to die. You don’t care if I live or die, you’re just afraid the monster’s gonna turn on her creator.”

“Am I wrong?”

“Don’t tempt me.” She felt her smile like the slash of a knife. She stalked to the cabinet, input the sealed combination and selected the serum.

“Get out,” Regis said, trembling. “Get out of my laboratory. And I’m telling the council I wash my hands of you.”

Lilith's lip rose. God but she hated weak men. “See you around, doctor,” she said as she left, saluting.

* * * 

“Oh no,” said Chuck. “Oh no no no.” Since meeting Sam and Dean, the visions had plagued him less, but now he was heading hard for one, the spiking pain in his head, and craaap why wasn’t he drunk, they had no spare alcohol, he fumbled in the storage room for painkillers instead.  
“Chuck, what are you doing?” He heard Becky exclaim behind him, but he didn’t care, because the pain in his head was making everything blur together. He finally got the painkillers open – God damn childproof caps - and swallowed a few of them dry. Becky grabbed the bottle from him before he could overdose, and he slumped against the crates.

“Fuuuuck,” he moaned, face in his hands. Becky knelt down next to him and placed her hands on his knees.

“Is it – are you-?”

“N - nothing’s happening. Well – just the pain.” Chuck bit his lip. “This is normally where I would…okay, I just have a brain tumour. I’m only dying. That’s great.”

“You don’t have a brain tumour,” Becky rolled her eyes. “You probably have a migraine. Come on, let’s get you to bed.”

Chuck whimpered pathetically and let her help him to his feet, before staggering to his bunk and collapsing.

“Becky?” he asked pitifully from where he lay with an arm across his eyes.

“Yeah sweetie?”

“Why couldn’t the Resistance have picked someone better to bioengineer?”

 

* * *

The trill of her phone jerked Lilith from a restless doze. She was often too tightly wound to sleep properly now, adrenalin from Regis’s serum coursing through her blood. It crackled in her extremities. The personal cell phone had been a gift from Nick, a direct line between them when they were separated by duty, and so far she’d managed to avoid surrendering it to the Council.

“Go ahead,” she cleared her throat.

“Lily, darling….”

Her eyes widened at oily voice, one of the last on the planet she’d expected to hear. “Crowley?”

“Hm, it takes more than a handful of goons to dispense with me, Peaches.”

“Call me one more pet name,” she growled, “And I will peel the flesh from your skull and force you to swallow it.”

There was the briefest of pauses, then Crowley said, “Now now, there’s no need to be nasty. I’m bringing you a present. Call it a peace offering.”

“How did you get this number?”

“Lifted it when we were stationed together. Now about that gift….”

“You have nothing that I want,” she spat.

“Oh really? Not even, say, the boy who killed your fuck-buddy with the power of his mind?”  
Lilith stopped. “You’re lying,” she said at last.

“Why would I? Believe me, I didn’t call just to hear your dulcet tones.”

“Send a photo,” she ordered.

“Done and done. Check your messages.”

Lilith put him hold. To her immense irritation, her fingers were shaking. She had a new photo-message: a blurred shot, taken in a vehicle, with his face half in shadow and turned away. But – yes. She would never mistake him. The camera had recorded that the photograph was taken seven minutes ago. Bile rose in her throat, and she swallowed several times before switching back to the voice function.

“How did you – what did you-” she closed her eyes briefly.

“You know, Sweet Cheeks, you don’t sound so good,” he mocked her. “When was the last time you got a good night’s sleep?”

“Crowley, you piece of shit, bring him to me,” she said through gritted teeth.

“Certainly.”

Pause.

“For a few…conditions.”

“What do you want?”

“Full amnesty.”

“You know I can’t do that,” she gritted her teeth. “I’m demoted. Disgraced.”

“And I also know,” said Crowley smoothly, “That if you want him badly enough, you’ll find a  
way to make it happen. Call me when you’re ready to talk business, darling. Ciao.”

“Wait – Cr –“ the line was dead. Lilith forced her teeth to unclench and her fingers to release the phone. Well alright. If he wanted to play it like that, she could play his game. 

She emailed the picture to herself, opened her terminal, and lightened it to make the face more visible. Then she picked up the landline, pressed 0 for an internal call, and dialled Eve. 

 

* * *

Hours wore on, and despite himself, Sam fell into a restless doze. He was jerked awake abruptly as the car stopped, and fell sideways onto the metal floor. It was dark out. He could make out the outlines of buildings through the windows, low and solid, lit at intervals by floodlights. He pushed himself to sit up, and through the other window he could just see the intricate tracery of barbed wire. 

“Catch,” Crowley said, tossing a bottle of water onto the back seat. Sam summoned a glare, and managed to hold the bottle between his wrists to undo the cap with his teeth. The water felt good on his throat, gurgling in his empty stomach, and he wondered how long they’d been driving. Lydia was curled in the passenger seat now, eyes wide and frightened.

“Where are we?” Sam croaked when he lowered the water bottle.

“A barracks, genius. The young lady of my acquaintance happens to be posted here. And here’s the welcome contingent.”

A door slid open, light shining brief and harsh from inside the building, and four figures lined up military-style in a pool from one of the floodlights. The first was a stern, serene woman with dark hair and blue eyes, her uniform more decorated than the others. Two blank-looking men, heavily armed. And the woman from his vision.

She was young – younger than he’d expected – but her narrow face was drawn and her eyes dark with strain. She was slender, but strong-looking, held herself like the consummate soldier, hair so blonde it was almost white pinned sternly behind her head.

“Lily. Darling,” said Crowley, getting out of the car with the dog at his heels and slamming the door behind him. He opened his arms as though he would touch her somehow and she raised her gun to his face.

“Children,” said the woman who was clearly their commander, low and sure in her authority. They backed off. “Well, let’s see what we have here.” She opened the back door and looked down on Sam, both men behind her aiming guns at him. She was quite beautiful, something ageless about her face, and a slow smile spread across her pink mouth. “Well,” she said. “I must say I had my doubts. You’re pardoned,” she glanced at Crowley. “And who’s that?” she glanced over at Lydia, who was positively cowering.

“Some Ghost. Needed a little assistance to get him here,” Crowley studied his nails.

“Any further use?”

“None.”

“Dispatch her,” said the commander to one of her men, and Lydia’s scream was abruptly cut off with a single bullet. Sam gagged.

“Now,” said the commander, turning her attention back to Sam. “Samuel. My name is Eve. I am a commander on the Resistance Council. I am no devotee of the Weapons scheme. I prefer more  
traditional methods. But Lilith here has certainly earned her chance to demonstrate your usefulness. On that note, I suppose it’s only appropriate: welcome home.”

TBC


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After this update, I must take a short break from this fic as I have 45 undergraduate essays to mark over the next couple of weeks. I have, however, plotted the last quarter or so in my head, and will get back to it ASAP.

The blonde woman was watching him.

Doing nothing else, just sitting on a stool and watching him from beyond the thib bars of his cage. The first thing they’d done was inject him with a cocktail which she assured him would leave him completely powerless. Then they’d imprisoned him. Now she just sat, and watched.  
If he spoke, she would have won some kind of battle of wills. But the waiting was getting to him. Futile questions like ‘what do you want with me’ kept making it halfway up his throat before he swallowed them.

“You’ll have to forgive me,” she said suddenly.

“What – what?” Damn. The drugs made him slow.

“It’s just I’ve waited a long time to meet you in person, Sam. I’ve heard so much about you. I knew your mother.”

He narrowed his eyes.

“I admired her. I wonder what she would say if she could see you now. Well I don’t wonder.” The woman stood up, slowly, and prowled towards his cage. “I can imagine. She’d be horrified. Disgusted. I mean, look at you. The Weapon. Reduced to this.”

“My mother left the Resistance,” Sam bit off. “She chose me over your sick ideas.”  
“Oh I doubt that,” the woman smiled. “Mary knew exactly what she signed up for. She wanted it.”

“She. Left.”

“Because the Council was going to off her lover.” She rolled her eyes. “She just happened to be pregnant with you and couldn’t exactly leave you behind.”

“No no no that’s not right. Dean wasn’t born here….”

“Dean? Is that your brother?” she leaned against the bars of his cage. “I remember him. Cute kid, but a borderline retard. State wouldn’t have any trouble wiping his memory.”

Sam gritted his teeth.

“Do you know who I am, Sam?” she asked softly. “Do you know why I’ve been waiting to meet you?”

“Yeah yeah, to use me, I get it.”

“Not only that. My name is Lilith, and you took something away from me. From all of us. His name was Prometheus, and he was going to save us in ways you can’t begin to imagine.”

“You think – wait –“ Sam shook his head. “I didn’t kill Prometheus. Ruby did.”

The woman paused. Her mouth twisted. Something flashed across her eyes for a moment, indecision or anger.

“I don’t know if that’s true or not,” she said at last. “But in any case, that whore is dead, and Prometheus died trying to bring you home. For that alone, I would kill you. But it looks like I need you now. My position is compromised. Of course,” she smirked. “That doesn’t mean I can’t find a way to make this as painful as possible.” With that, she drew a small device from her belt and something hit him – invisible, sharp, hot, causing all of his muscles to seize and release:

“It’s called a taser,” she explained as he slumped against the wall, panting. “Quite archaic,  
actually. We’ve had them for decades. They’re useful because they don’t actually damage you. Much,” she amended.

“So.” She slipped the taser into her belt: “Ready to come out and show me what you can do? Are you going to be a good boy and behave yourself?”

“Fuck you,” he bit off.

“Shame,” she shrugged, and drew the taser again.

* * *

“Lilith has Sam", said Chuck, not bothering to knock.

“What?” Dean was on his feet immediately: “Who the hell is Lilith?”

“A commander. I mean, she was a commander. I thought she was dead,” Chuck spread his hands. “She has Sam. She wants to hand him over to the Revolutionary Council in exchange for a better position. She wanted to kill him, she’s wanted to kill him for years, but now she has to use him to bargain first because she got demoted.”

“Hold up.” Dean was in Chuck’s space, backing the much smaller man up against a wall, and he was dimly aware of Cas hovering behind him. “Are you telling me some Resistance bitch has Sam?  
That she’s been plotting to kill him? And you knew?” 

Chuck squeaked.

“Dean,” said Cas.

“Leave him alone, he thought she was dead!” Becky barged into the room in her nightdress, inserting herself between Dean and Chuck and glaring up into his face. 

“What the hell is he talking about?” Dean demanded of Becky. 

“Alright. Just, everybody calm down,” Becky said firmly. “Go and sit over there,” she pointed to the bunk. Dean obeyed her because it seemed fastest. Cas sat on the bedroll with his legs crossed and Chuck cowered behind Becky. “Chuck’s had visions of Lilith for a long time,” Becky said after a moment. “He saw her backstory. She was a Revolutionary commander who wanted to carry a Weapon, but her DNA wasn’t suitable. She was with Prometheus. His right hand woman, and also his lover. It’s kind of tragic, in a sympathetic villain way.”

“Becky,” Dean snapped. “Focus.”

“Right. So after you guys swiped the formula, Chuck didn’t see Lilith any more, and he guessed it was because she’d been executed. That’s what they normally do to a commander who screws up. But lately he’s been having headaches again-“

“And you didn’t think you should maybe tell me?” Dean yelled at Chuck.

“I’m sorry! I didn’t have any vision until tonight and then I came straight here! I thought I was just dying of a brain tumour or something!”

“Don’t. Yell at him,” Becky glared. “Anyway, tonight Chuck got a vision of Sam. Really clear. Lilith’s alive, and she’s holding Sam to make him exhibit his powers.”

“Okay,” Dean started pacing. “Are – I mean, are you sure?”

“Chuck’s visions haven’t been wrong yet,” said Becky somberely. 

“So,” Dean ran a hand through his hair. “We have to get him back. What base? Where?”

“I don’t know,” Chuck said.

“Well, that’s awesome.”

“Charlie!” Becky said.

“What?” Charlie was one of the Ghosts Dean had rarely spoken with – a slim red-haired young woman with bright intelligent eyes.

“If we could get one of the computers working, Charlie could hack the Resistance database and find out where Lilith is posted,” Becky said. “She’s like a computer genius! Software though, not hardware. She couldn’t put one together.” The computers in the small lab were mostly disassembled, and restoring them hadn’t been a priority. 

“How do you know all this?” Dean frowned at her.

“Um, I talk to people? You should try it occasionally, instead of just yelling at them.” Scowling back, Becky patted Chuck on the arm.

“Alright,” Dean said. “Get Charlie, Hamid, Tia, and anyone else who knows anything about engineering. Meet us in the lab.” Including Castiel in the plan seemed to be automatic now. Fifteen minutes later, the assorted group was standing amid pieces of electronics, with Tia under a desk in the lab and Hamid attempting to fuse pieces of wire. Charlie was standing beside Dean, looking serious and quietly excited. Her fingers flexed unconsciously, as though in anticipation of a keyboard. 

“I take it you were Resistance too?” Dean asked her.

“No, State. I worked in computers – obviously – security stuff.”

“Why’d you leave?”

“I basically got busted for snooping – as in, the kind of snooping that my bosses didn’t want me to do.” She smiled a little, just a hint of insolence, and Dean suddenly liked her a lot better.

“So you had to disappear,” he suggested.

“I had to disappear,” she agreed. “But don’t worry about this. Hacking Resistance files was my daily business.”

“Got it!” Hamid exclaimed suddenly, and the monitor Tia was working under suddenly glowed to life. Charlie’s face lit up and she grabbed a chair, hardly waiting for Tia to remove herself before she got to work. The first thing the computer did was ask for a password – Charlie opened the options menu and started inputting commands in DOS. After a few moments, strings of white letters began to scroll across a black screen.

“This will take a while,” she said apologetically: “I’m reduced to a brute-force hack.”

“What?” said Dean.

“I just wrote a program to circumvent the lockouts and try every possible combination of keyboard characters until it hits the password. So, yeah. I’ll call you when it’s ready.”

“How long is a while?” Dean demanded.

“Depends entirely on the strength of the password,” Charlie shrugged. “They aren’t dumb, so it won’t be seconds or minutes.”

It took, in fact, over three hours, during which time Dean almost went out of his mind with worry, demanded information that Chuck didn’t have to give, got yelled at by Becky and infuriatingly counselled by Castiel. 

“What exactly is your plan?” Castiel asked, not in a judgemental way, but sounding purely curious.

“I’m gonna get Sam back,” Dean shrugged. “I’ve done it before and I can do it again.”

“That scheme is suicidal,” Cas said flatly. “Even if he is held at a remote location with the minimum of security, and every person here volunteers to help you, the most likely outcome is everyone’s death.”

“I’m not asking for volunteers.”

“In my case, you would not have to ask.”

Dean blinked. “Huh?”

“I am offering,” Castiel said.

“Well – why? Like you say, it’s a suicide go. I have to do this. You don’t have to.”  
Castiel just tilted his head to the side in that birdlike way. Dean shivered. He was glad for the help, obviously, but…

“It’s your choice,” he said firmly. “You know the risks.”

Castiel said thoughtfully, “Before you came, I was more than prepared to die. I thought you were sent here to kill me. I don’t have anything else, and I would rather die…helpfully. Perhaps I can give you and Sam a chance to get away.”

“Oh, Jesus.” Dean smacked his face into his hand.

“Guys,” Chuck stuck his head around the door: “Charlie’s ready.”

They hurried back to the lab, where Charlie had already pulled up a roster of names on the computer screen.

“Do you know Lilith’s sirname?” she asked Chuck.

“No.”

“No problem.” Charlie pressed a few more keys, and a set of profile photographs filled the screen. With a jolt, Dean recognised the calm, foxlike face of Prometheus.

“This was the Revolutionary Council a year ago,” Charlie said. “Chuck, which one of these people is the woman from your visions?”

“That one,” Chuck pointed with certainty. “That’s her.”

“Lilith Fremont,” Charlie read off the caption under the serious, sharp face. “Commander. 

Okay, I’ll just find out where she’s posted now-“

“Hey,” Dean said, “Scroll up a minute.” Charlie scrolled back up the page obligingly, until Dean said, “Stop there.” A clever-looking dark-eyed man smiled slickly back at him. There was something intensely familiar about him – had Dean encountered him on a mission in his old life?

“Fergus Crowley,” Charlie read off the screen, “Lieutenant.”

Becky had gone pale. “Oh…crap,” she raised hand to her mouth.

“Oh crap what, Becky?” said Dean through gritted teeth.

“He said he was a Ghost,” Becky backed away from the screen. “It’s my fault. I brought him – I brought him to Bobby’s. He must be working with Lilith.”

Dean cursed and slammed his hands down on the desk.

“Alright then,” Becky squared her shoulders. “So I’m coming too.”

“What? Becky, no, you’ll be killed!” Chuck said.

“I don’t know if anyone’s noticed,” Becky said, “But I’m not completely incompetent. I’ve  
survived ten years on my own since my Mom died, I can shoot, use a knife, and I’m fast.”

“But you’re taking about going up against a garrison full of Resistance soldiers!” Chuck exclaimed. “Becky, you don’t know – you have no idea what they’ll do to you!”

“Nothing worse than what they’re doing to Sam right now. Which is my fault.”

“You didn’t know,” Dean forced himself to say.

“Okay not so much fault, but responsibility. I’m going.”

“Then I’m going too,” said Chuck.

“Oh what the hell,” Charlie said. “Guess I’d look like a total douchebag if I didn’t volunteer now, huh?”

Dean was speechless. He didn’t know whether to be grateful or horrified. True enough, most Ghosts could fire a gun, and over half of them could hit a target….but they were still civilians. Then he thought of something:

“Charlie. Couldn’t you stay here and, say, sabotage the communications system on Lilith’s base? Or put her security cameras out? That would be the biggest help.”

“Let’s have a look,” Charlie pressed a few keys. “Woo, this girl’s been in trouble. Three council members recommended her execution. She’s just a grunt now. Stationed at…Base 26, Southern Territories, co-ordinates 25°0′10″N 107°30′10″W, Commanding Officer Eve Augusta. That’s a good day’s drive South East of here in a decent vehicle. But sure, I’ll take her cameras out. It’ll take me a while to hack into the system, but I can do it.”

“Fuck,” Dean ran his hands through his hair. “We don’t have time to walk that.”

“We’ll have to hijack a vehicle,” said Cas calmly. “You and I can return to the crossroads and  
complete that part of the mission by stealth, then bring it here.”

“That’s – a great idea,” Dean said. “Alright, let’s get to it. Chuck, you and Becky round up whatever supplies we got here that we can take, weapons especially. And hell – if anyone else wants to volunteer….” He waved his hand. Becky jumped up and down with excitement and nerves then ran off to begin organizing. Chuck saluted and followed her. Charlie turned back to the computer, and Dean and Cas headed for the crossroads.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One creative liberty with this chapter: you cannot really crack a strong password with a brute force attack in a couple of hours. According to lastbit.com, an 8-character password utilizing upper and lower case letters plus numbers and symbols would take over 400 years to crack – but beware: a six letter password of lower-case letters only can be cracked in ten minutes. So choose your passwords carefully, kids!


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we're back! Only a few more parts to come, we're all going for the climax now. :)  
> Warning: Minor character deaths.

Cas had resumed that still, birdlike posture, reminding Dean of an eagle or owl preparing itself to swoop. The crossroads had been deserted for three hours now, and he was desperate to get going, but until they could steal a vehicle they were effectively grounded. He had left Chuck and Becky in charge, gathering supplies and rallying the troops – if one could call them that. Dean still didn’t know if there was any wisdom in taking them – but he supposed, more hands, more eyes, more guns and –

“We can at least provide a measure of shielding,” Castiel said gravely.

Dean jumped. That was not where he was going. Not at all.

“You sure you’re not bioengineered?” he asked suspiciously. “You seem to be reading my mind a lot dude.”

“I am sure. You have an expressive face.”

Which Cas spent a lot of time reading, apparently.

“You know…” Dean blew out his breath. This was probably the last pause they’d get before it was full-on action, so he had to say this: “You know me and Sam are…”

“Together. Yes.”

“I’m just saying, dude, don’t go falling in love with me.” Forced jocularity a little too much. A little too mocking.

Castiel just gave him the tragic eyes.

‘Fuck my life,’ thought Dean. He had come to care about Cas intensely in just the short time he’d known him, and undeniably, the man possessed an offbeat sort of beauty. In another life – say, when Dean was single and Cas was sane and unicorns shat rainbows – he would no doubt have been up for a whole different sort of bonding. For lack of anything more appropriate, he patted Cas on the shoulder.  
The growling of an engine alerted them both at once. It was too loud and lumbering to be anything but a Ghost’s, as the state of the truck that came into view shortly afterwards confirmed.

“Let’s do this without bloodshed if we can,” Dean said. Castiel shrugged. They got up and stood in the road with their guns aimed at the truck’s windscreen. The driver’s eyes visibly widened. He braked.

“Hands up and get out of there,” Dean ordered. The Ghost slowly raised his hands and got out of the cab, looking terrified.

“I got nothing of value in there,” he said.

“We need your truck,” explained Dean. “You can hang out at our base while we borrow it, and if we can, we’ll get it back to you when we’re done.”

“Please, I – what?” the Ghost was clearly expecting to be shot, and was taken aback at this.

“We require your vehicle urgently,” Cas said.

“We got no beef with you,” Dean said, but he didn’t lower his gun. “Hop on into the back now.” 

Shaking, the Ghost complied, and Dean took the wheel whilst Cas kept a gun trained on their hostage. Dean swallowed adrenalin. Stage one down without a hitch. Of course, that was the easy part.  
At the base, Becky, Chuck, Rosemary and Hamid were waiting already armed.

“Got these working.” Hamid produced a pair of communicators – limited range, so they couldn’t leave one for Charlie, but definitely an advantage if and when the group needed to split up. Dean and Cas took 

one each. Their other boon was a single grenade.

“Charlie’s working on accessing the cameras,” Becky said, “But she says we need to co-ordinate watches and agree on a time to infiltrate. If she turns them off too soon, someone will notice before we get there. Here are the co-ordinates, and ours,” she handed Dean a piece of paper with some scribbled numbers. 

“Given the state of the vehicle we will need approximately 20 hours to reach that base,” said Cas. 

“That is barring any untoward interruption.”

“Tell Charlie 0200 tomorrow,” Dean said to Becky, who went to dispatch the message. “Is there any way we can keep in contact with her?” He was looking at Chuck, who shook his head:

“Sam’s the only other person I’ve ever had any kind of communication with, and I’m assuming that’s 

because he’s-“

“Alright, get anything else you need,” Dean said. “We leave in twenty minutes.”

* * *

“You look like rat shit,” said Crowley to Sam, leaning casually in the doorway. Sam had been moved to a more secure cell with a gun at the back of his head – the bars between him and Crowley were electrified. Once Lilith had judged that the serum had worn off, she had tried to force Sam to display his power by using the taser. When he refused, she got frustrated, and tried a knife – holding herself back from real damage, she couldn’t afford that, but she knew to the last nerve how best to inflict pain without debilitating her prisoner. She’d learned from the best, he assumed. After the knife, she’d called on a couple of meathead guards who seemed ready to do her bidding – or just glad for the chance to rough somebody up a bit, the old-fashioned way. 

“You know what this place reminds me of?” Sam said.

“Can’t imagine,” Crowley patted his dog’s head.

“The State prisons.”

Crowley snorted.

“Oh they were cleaner,” Sam went on, shifting awkwardly against the stone wall as his bruised ribs protested. They weren’t broken, but a sudden sharp jolt of pain made him wonder if one or two were cracked. “Better technology. But they wanted to test me too. They tortured me. Trying to get me to manifest my powers.”

“Oh, the moral irony,” Crowley deadpanned. “So…” he pushed himself off the doorframe. “Bent any spoons yet?”

Now Sam snorted.

“Can you?”

“What’s it to you?”

“Generalized curiosity. I am a man of varied pursuits, including intellectual.”

“I would have to be pretty stupid to tell you anything.”

“Yeah well no offense, kid, but you ain’t won any prizes for brains in the short time I’ve known you.” 

Crowley chuckled the rough low laugh of a long-term smoker.

“I trusted you,” Sam admitted. “That was stupid. Or – I didn’t think to doubt you.”

“Even now,” Crowley narrowed his eyes, a hint of a smile still playing at the corners of his mouth, 

“After everything you know about the State and its alternatives, you take people at face value. You   
don’t think to doubt them. that is stupid.”

Sam swallowed. “I feel sorry for you.”

Crowley gestured to his dog and turned to leave: “The feeling’s mutual.”

* * *

There was something vaguely farcical about it – the creaky old truck struggling across the badlands with its burden of antiheroes – but everyone from Cas to Becky remained serious and stoic-faced. Dean felt like laughing – hysterically – or perhaps praying, but that was hardly an option these days.

He wondered if Cas ever prayed.

They made surprisingly good time, and actually stopped driving an hour before the appointed shut down of the cameras. A slow realization had come over Dean as the miles passed, and with it, something treacherously close to hope they could actually succeed here: he knew where they were going. He’d been to this base before, a covert op back in early Guard days, when his unit commander was tasked with the assassination of a Resistance commander. To the shock and shame of the unit, they’d failed – Resistance had somehow gotten word of their movements, the target was long gone, and an ambush was waiting for them. one hand unconsciously dropped to the deepest scar on his body, the messy one across his abdomen. His first Guard commander had died that day, along with most of their unit.  
Well.

The plus was, he knew the terrain. There were trees on the east side and a depression on the North, which meant they should split up and approach the base from different angles. More chance of some of them dying and the rest getting in under cover of the distraction. He conferred with Cas briefly, and they decided that Cas would take Becky and Hamid and go North, Dean would take Rosemary and Chuck and approach from the East. Dean’s team would attempt to get Sam out, Cas’s company provide the distraction: to which end, they took the grenade. Whoever got out would rendezvous at the truck. T-minus 30 minutes: they split up. Dean led his half of the contingent along the treeline, stopping and holding a hand out when the lights of the base glinted through the trees. Chuck nearly stumbled over his arm, gulping. His eyes were huge.

“You gonna be alright?” Dean asked him sharply.

Chuck nodded frantically.

“I can’t shield you once we get in there.”

“I can do it,” Chuck said. “It’s just – wow – I haven’t seen one since – you know….”

Dean nodded.

T-minus 18 minutes. Rosemary stared silently through the trees, the odd lights of the base casting her features with a strange glow. Her gun looked large and heavy in her hands. Dean realized how little he knew about her.

T-minus 10 minutes. The communicator in Dean’s hand crackled to life.

“ ---- in –--sition,” came Cas’s voice through static.

“Alright,” said Dean quietly. “I’ll signal you as we move out.”  
T-minus 4 minutes. Dean cleared his throat and said quietly, “Thanks for this, guys.”  
Pause. Rosemary said,

“I don’t know if I believe Becky. I want to. Sometimes I think I do. But if it wasn’t for you guys I’d be dead anyway, so…” she shrugged.

T-minus 1 minute.

Dean watched the seconds tick down on his watch.

And… “We’re going in,” he said into the com unit.

“Copy that, --ving ---t,” said Cas.

Nothing changed. There were no sirens, no lights glaring at the base. He had no way of knowing, really, if Charlie had come through for them, but they moved out at his gesture anyway, hoping Cas and the others hadn’t been sighted and shot already. As they approached, no searchlights pinned them or alarms screamed.

“She did it,” Chuck said hopefully.

There were guards either side of the gate in the barbed wire fence. Slipping past it, they turned the corner and clipped a small hole in the fence. They were in. 

“Cas, we’re in, what’s happening?” Dean said into the com unit.

“--- place to enter….guards patrolling this side.”

“Alright, check in when you’re through the fence. Cameras seem to be down.”

They moved silently along the side of the building, approaching a metal door. It opened abruptly in front of them, and Dean reacted, knifing the soldier swiftly under the ribs on the left side. His eyes widened in surprise, and his strangled sound was choked off with thick arterial blood. The body fell heavily at their feet, and Dean quickly took his machine gun: a faster and more precise model than what he was carrying. He passed his own gun to Rosemary. He peered around the doorway and saw two more soldiers heading down the corridor, backs to the door.

A burst of gunfire split the air suddenly on the other side of the compound.

“ – sighted-” came through the com-line.

“Shit,” Dean said. In a flurry of activity the guards ran from the corridor, heading towards the fire. Dean shot them both in the back. A siren started up, and the base was moving. They ran down the corridor and Rosemary said, 

“This way!” sighting a sign that said read, ‘cells’, then yelped as a bullet clipped her shoulder. Her assailant went down under a hail of bullets from Chuck’s gun. Dean sprinted down the corridor, came to a screeching halt by a door labelled holding cell and blew the lock out. The door swung open to reveal a corridor, bars of electricity cutting off cells, most of which were empty. He glanced wildly around for the source of the power, dimly aware that Chuck and Rosemary were no longer behind him. His eyes fell on a circuit-board, which he shot to pieces. It fizzled and snapped, sparks from above, and he ducked, momentarily, covering his head.

“Dean!” shouted Sam, and despite everything, Dean felt a grin break out his face. The sparks lessened, and he raised his head to see Sam pressed against the now-deactived bars of a small cell, bruised and bloody and with one hand clamped against his ribs, but very much alive. Dean unlocked the cell easily with the flip of a latch, grabbed Sam and kissed him. Sam returned the kiss frantically, but then Dean pulled back:

“We have to go, can you walk?”  
Sam nodded: “Maybe not run,” he added with a self-depreciating grin. Dean grabbed his arm and propelled him towards the doorway and back down the corridor:

“Oh – shit,” three bodies slumped in close proximity. Two guards – 

\- And Chuck.

“Oh – shit,” Sam said again, pressing his free hand to his mouth.  
At that moment, the ceiling caved. A deep boom shook the building, a crack, followed by the roar of flame and groan of collapsing structures. Cas had used the grenade. The com-unit crackled to life suddenly.

“Dean, report,” Cas said.

“I’ve got Sam. Chuck’s dead. Rosemary’s missing.”

“Hamid is dead also. We have inflicted severe casualties on their numbers.”

“Get out, and get Becky out,” Dean said.

“You brought them?” Sam said incredulously. 

“They volunteered,” Dean bit off.

Sam blinked.

“We have to get out of here, now.”

* * *

Dean had hoped, vainly, that Rosemary would be waiting at the truck. She wasn’t. Cas held one arm awkwardly, and Becky’s cheek was torn, blood drying on her face and down her collarbone. They were both filthy and covered in ash. No-one spoke. Becky reached over and squeezed Sam’s hand, but her eyes were dull.

Becky took the wheel. Dean sat close enough to Sam to feel the warmth of his body, hands surreptitiously interlinked, heart beating fast, feeling real.

“Sorry,” he said after a moment to Becky.

She raised her chin and shrugged.

Cas looked sideways at Sam. 

“Hi,” Sam said eagerly, leaning forward to shake Cas’s good hand. “I’m sorry, we haven’t met-…?”  
Castiel cocked his head. “We met several minutes ago.”

“Sam, this is Castiel,” Dean said. “We kind of, uh, found him. At the Base.”

“You rebelled against the State? That’s great – us too. Thank you so much. For volunteering for this. I mean, I guess you’re a soldier so…” Sam trailed off. Cas was staring at him in that way he had.

“Your survival was extremely important to Dean,” he said gravely.

“Uh, yeah….” Sam said. “Right.”

Silence. 

“I killed five of them,” Becky said after a moment.

“Cool,” Dean said absently.

“I never saw Crowley though.”

“Lilith?” Sam asked.

“We did not see her either,” Cas said. “She may have been killed in the explosion.”

“Those people shouldn’t have died for me,” Sam blurted.

 

No-one really had any answer. He was right. Why did they have to come?, Dean wondered. Would the mission have succeeded without them? They were cannon fodder. But he knew, deep down, didn’t feel the deaths like he ought to, with Sam and – yes, Cas – alive. He never claimed to be a good guy. 

TBC


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NB more character death (not principals)

Apparently Castiel retained some inkling of social norms – as Dean was getting Sam settled in their room, he picked up his stuff and made to go.

“Oh –you don’t have to-…” Sam said awkwardly. “I mean we can move – you were here first.”

“It is no trouble,” Castiel said gravely, and Dean felt like a grade-A asshole. He’d have to spend some time with Castiel. Soon, he told himself. But now his eyes met Sam’s, and they carefully removed Sam’s shirt together. Dean hissed at the half-healed cuts, and bruises across Sam’s ribs. He touched them gently –

\- “They’re not broken,” Sam said.

Dean frowned: “How do you know?”

Sam rolled his eyes. “I think I’d know.”

“Bitch.” Dean leaned in and Sam tipped his face upwards. Their mouths met and Dean tasted dried blood, and familiarity. Sam reached up and pulled him down, running one hand through Dean’s hair and the other down his back –

\- “Woah, hand on a second,” Dean exclaimed. “Let’s clean you up first.”

“Then hurry up.” Dean got a wet cloth and some alcohol, disinfected Sam’s cuts and ran his fingers over his ribs, checking for breaks. He was barely finished when Sam was pulling him down again, seeking entrance to his mouth with his tongue –

“Are you sure?” Dean said. “you’re pretty banged up.”

“Fuck yes,” said Sam, “Please.”

“You’re a dark horse, you know that? Everyone thinks you’re so innocent….”

“I lost God, I get this,” Sam said determinedly, and Dean nodded. Carefully he straddled Sam’s lap. Taking most of his own weight on his thighs, and pushed Sam backwards until he had access to all of his body. He traced the marks with his mouth, one by one, Sam responsive and moving beneath him, and Dean forced himself not to think of anything but what he had here. What he’d almost lost.

“Uh. Fuck me,” said Sam, using one hand to stimulate Dean’s dick:

“Then you’d better stop that,” Dean panted: “It’s been a while.”

Sam withdrew his hand and Dean fumbled for his backpack. Lube was a scarce commodity in the badlands, but they’d long since discovered a common oil that worked well enough. Dean unscrewed the little jar, but Sam grabbed it off him, prepared them both, teasing at the same time:

“Sammy, I’m serious, if you want to do anything else right now-“  
With a final twist of his wrist Sam let go.

“I missed you so bad,” Dean said, taking his dick in one hand whilst he positioned Sam with the other.

“Show me.” Sam was ready, muscles opening to accept Dean with little provocation, and he found himself saying,

“Yes. Love you,” and other embarrassing things, for which he would blame hormones. He came in Sam, both their hands around Sam’s dick, who followed an instant afterward. Dean collapsed, just catching himself on his arms and panting, and lay down next to Sam .they both breathed hard for a few minutes.

“Thank you,” Sam said finally.

Dean snorted laughter. 

“I mean for the rescue and all.”

“Still.” They kissed.

After a moment, Sam said:

“So Castiel.”

Dean felt himself stiffen.

“What’s up with him?” Sam propped himself up on one elbow.

“He’s…damaged,” Dean said vaguely. “Ex-state, you know how it is.”

“Hmm.”

Pause.

“It’s pretty crazy – I mean, I’m not complaining, but still it’s pretty crazy – that he’d come on this rescue mission for a guy he’s never even met.”

“He did it for me.”

“Yeah, I gathered.” There was nothing accusatory in Sam’s tone, nothing suspicious. But he was picking at the threads on the mattress and seemed to require something more from Dean, so Dean said,

“He thinks I saved him and all. I don’t know. He’s as capable as I am, could’ve been a Guard. He’s just….messed up.”

“I wonder what they did to him,” Sam had that noble, sad look on his face, the one with the deep eyes. Dean sighed:

“I’m sure you can use your imagination.”

“I should talk to him. Thank him properly.”

Dean had several distinct ideas about how that could go wrong. Instead of bringing any of them up, he kissed Sam again. “Go to sleep,” he said. 

Pause.

“I wish we could know that Lilith was dead.”

“Yeah, well, you can’t always get what you want.”

* * *

The next day they held a small service, for Chuck and Hamid and Rosemary. Becky had glimpsed her shortly before the explosion, and by piecing together their last sights of her, they realized she had very probably died in it. Everyone seemed to be looking to Dean to lead the proceedings. He managed a few inadequate words, and they buried Chuck’s flask, Hamid’s razor and Rosemary’s hairbrush behind the base.

Then they all got drunk.

“Chuck would have wanted this,” Becky said, opening a bottle and downing several gulps.

“I’m sure this is the way he’d like to be remembered,” Sam offered.

“No I mean he literally would have wanted this,” Becky gestured the booze in her hand. She drank again, then winced and wiped her mouth. “God, that’s bad.” In her lap was Chuck’s battered journal.

“You’re keeping that?” Sam asked.

“I’m going to carry it on,” Becky said. “I mean, I may not have visions, but I can still write down what’s happening. I could be like a chronicler of the revolution.”

Sam put his hand on hers. “I’m sure Chuck would be proud.”

“No he wouldn’t.” She smiled, a little wobbly. “He’d tell me I was wasting my time, that there wasn’t going to be a revolution, and try not to make it obvious he was looking at my boobs.” She   
sighed. “I miss him.”

“To our friends and comrades,” said Charlie seriously, raising the can she was drinking out of.

“Friends and comrades,” said everyone, even Castiel, and raised what passed for their glasses.

 

* * *

Someone needed to make the trip to the Ghost town, to gather the other survivors. Tia and Charlie volunteered. That left just Dean, Castiel , Sam, the unfortunate truck driver and Becky, plus the last two Ghosts of Dean’s contingent: a thirty-something guy named Dylan who walked with a limp, and a brunette called Nora who’d spent most of her time at the base buried in Bobby’s books. She knew something about herbal medicine, and on the trip had advised them regarding what vegetation was safe to eat, and what poisonous. 

“Funny how our numbers seem to be going down,” said Dean, apparently tempting fate, because the next day Ghosts started to trickle in. apparently word had gone out from the crossroads where they’d been bartering. They came in pairs or alone. Then in small groups. They wanted to see Sam and Dean, to touch them, and hear how they would form an army to overthrow the State.

“Becky,” Sam grabbed her arm, none too gently: “Are you giving these people ideas?”

“I didn’t start it!” Becky objected. “Maybe there are other prophets! Maybe Chuck or someone talked at the crossroads! You know how rumour is…”

“But you’re not discouraging them,” Sam sighed.

“My job is to spread hope,” Becky raised her chin. God, she was difficult to argue with.

The new Ghosts brought food. Some brought guns, and asked Sam, Dean and Castiel to train them. Castiel was good at that. Most people were scared or confused by him, but respected that he knew what he was doing when it came to training. Sam didn’t know what to make of Castiel. The State had damaged them all. But Castiel was profoundly, weirdly broken, and he kept staring at Dean, his intense eyes full of adoration, and if Sam were the jealous type…but no. that was stupid. Dean loved Sam, always and only. ‘He saved me. He abandoned the State for me’. Sam forced himself to be extra solicitous and nice to Castiel, just to stop his mind from wandering where it shouldn’t.

He also engaged in enthusiastic and regular sex with Dean.

Dean wasn’t complaining.

But something was changing, nonetheless. Dean never came out and said that he accepted their mission, that he believed Becky and Chuck, but he wasn’t objecting to it either. He was training the Ghosts. He was accepting newcomers, assigning tasks, talking tactics with Castiel. It was what Sam had wanted. For Dean to be on board. For Dean to see the big picture.  
And yet, for the first time since Sam had met him, he wasn’t Dean’s whole focus.  
Charlie and Tia returned, bringing more Ghosts. They also brought news:

“Bobby’s dead,” Charlie said somberly.

“Wh – how?” Sam sat, hard.

She shrugged. “He went to sleep and didn’t wake up. Guess he liver finally packed it in.” ‘Or he dosed himself up with something to seal the deal’, they all thought, but nobody said it. Sam didn’t really believe it, either. That was a coward’s act, and Bobby had not been a coward.

Dean took the news hard. He retreated into himself, doubling his efforts with the Ghosts, and would only talk shop, the logistics of running the base. One night he’d holed himself up with Tia and one of the newcomers named Brian, a former Resistance engineer, to talk about work on the new vehicles. Sam found himself at a loose end, and wandered outside to look at the dusk, which was creeping in earlier now.

He found Castiel sitting under a tree, drinking.

“Hi,” Sam said, surprised. It wasn’t that he’d never seen Castiel drink before, but this was hard stuff, and by the amount in the bottle and glazed expression on Castiel’s face, he’d been working on it for a while.

“Hello Sam,” Castiel intoned.

“Um, did you want to – am I interrupting?”

“Interrupting what?”

“Well – you….do you want to be alone?”

Castiel paused as though considering the question. Then: “It doesn’t matter.” He said. Then he tucked his legs up and asked properly, “Would you like to sit down?”

“Okay, thanks,” Sam sat, relieved that the damage to his ribs was no longer hampering him. Castiel offered him the bottle. Sam considered, then sipped tentatively. “That’s disgusting.”

“But effective,” Castiel said.

“So….you’re getting drunk.”

“That is my general intention.”

“Can I ask why?”

Castiel stared at him mournfully. 

“Is there…anything I can do?”

Sam was suddenly infuriated. “Are you in love with Dean?”

Castiel blinked. “I am not sure what you mean by that.” Alcohol had neither worsened nor improved his ability to carry on a conversation.

“Do you want him? Do you want to have sex with him?”

“Dean….is the reason for my continued existence. Had he not arrived, I would soon have died of dehydration or perhaps dispatched myself. I…attempted to render him services in the best manner I am able. He – refused.”

Ugh. O-kay, now Sam felt like an asshole. He took a long drink from the bottle and then passed it back. Maybe questioning Castiel about sex wasn’t the best idea.

“You know Dean and I are together, right?” he tried instead.

“His devotion to you is evident,” said Castiel.

“I love him too,” Sam said sharply.

“Yes,” said Castiel.

“And you…?”

“Have a new purpose t my existence,” Castiel shrugged. The gesture was a little looser, more expansive, than it would have been if he were sober. “It is not…I am not….once, I was very sure. Of the world. Of my place in it.”

“Me too,” Sam said quickly, wanting to connect with him: “I was raised in the State. Went to Central College. I believed in God, in the State….I was going to be a lawyer.”

“And I….” Castiel smiled. “Was content to live or die as a warrior of God.”

Sam snorted. Drank.

Castiel looked at him sharply. “God is just,” he said. “It is the State’s actions on Earth, in His name, of which I am no longer convinced.”

“Yeah I don’t know,” Sam said uncomfortably. “It seems to me if God existed, outside of the State’s rhetoric, He’s missed several excellent opportunities to correct His wayward children.”

“Or perhaps He has given up.” Castiel was definitely drunk now. His tone was conspiratorial. “I would understand that.”

“Yeah I think you’ve had enough,” Sam reached to take the bottle from him. Castiel scowled and moved it, but Sam had longer arms and managed to grab it anyway. Castiel’s face fell. After a moment he said,

“Sam, I wish - wish you to know something.”

“Yeah?”

“I am no threat to you and Dean. I would not attempt to intrude on your bond. But I hope – hope I can be – useful to you.”

“Aw - Castiel,” Sam sighed. “Look, I’m glad you’re here okay? I’m glad Dean had a friend whilst I was – has a friend. And I think we could be friends too.”

“I would like that,” said Castiel, then passed out. It was so abrupt Sam jumped in alarm – Castiel hadn’t seemed all that drunk – but evidently he was the type of guy it just snuck up on. Castiel simply closed his eyes and slumped backwards against the tree trunk. Tentatively, Sam checked his pulse. He seemed to be fine – just profoundly asleep. Sam tried shaking him a little, but nothing happened. Well, crap. He couldn’t exactly leave Castiel here – it was rapidly getting dark, and the nights weren’t as warm as they had been, not to mention the fact they just happened to be in the middle of the Badlands. After a moment’s deliberation, he bent down, and lifted Castiel in a fireman’s carry. His residual bruises protested a bit, but Castiel was pretty light, and Sam had put on muscle since his days as a Novice. He carried Castiel inside, attracting a couple of raised eyebrows (and a barely-stifled squeak of delight from Becky). Sam started to turn for the room Castiel had claimed as his own, then stopped. He rationalized that his and Dean’s was closer, and though Castiel was skinny, carrying another fully-grown adult wasn’t exactly effortless. Remembering a story Dean once told about a cadet on leave, Sam decided should probably keep an eye on Castiel, in case he choked on his own vomit or something, so he deposited him on Dean’s bunk and stood up with a sigh of relief. In the dim light Castiel looked sad. Small. Older, but vulnerable. Sam ran a hand over his face.

“What are we gonna do with him, huh?”

Sam jumped. He hadn’t heard Dean come up behind him.

“Fix him?” said Sam hopefully.

“Doubt it,” Dean said dryly. “You wanna sleep in his bed?”

“Nah. He’s off his face. We should stay here, get the bedroll out.”

“You’ll make a fine mother someday Sammy.”

“That’s kind of gross.”

For the first time since the news about Bobby, Dean laughed.


	17. Chapter 17

Bright light beyond her eyelids.

Lilith tried to open her mouth, but her lips were stuck together, the taste of ash and bile on her tongue. She was lying on her back and the surface was broken. She cracked her eyes open, then shut them again as the light set off a cacophony in her head. Her lips came apart and she licked them. One by one, she tested all of her limbs. They were still attached. She ached, but nothing seemed to be broken or gushing blood. Preparing herself this time, she opened her eyes again.

She was lying on a piece of the fence , now flattened, that had surrounded the base. She must have been flung back against her. Above her was sky, and before her –

\- She sat up. It hurt, but she didn’t have time to think better of it. A quarter of the base was gone, blown away, the structure open and gaping. Ragged edges of ceiling and struts were coming down around it. The blown-out area was littered with brick, rubble, bodies – pieces of bodies. The rest of the base was silent.  
She stood, painfully, patted herself down. She seemed to have nothing worse than bruises, and a multitude of small cuts and burns. The ends of her hair were singed off. She limped towards the ruins. she kicked a hand, still attached to most of a wrist, from her path. 

“Hello?” she called. No answer. Up close, the smell of charred flesh made her gag a little. Her eyes widened as they fell on a form, bent over and badly burned, but still recognizable…even if Lilith couldn’t tell, the commander’s stripes on the remaining sleeve would have told her.   
Eve was dead.

“Anyone else alive?” she called. She picked her way through the rubble and came to the part of the base still standing, covering her face with her sleeve against the smell of smoke. The rest of the base was deserted – several more bodies, though not enough to account for the full contingent posted. The rest must have returned to HQ, or fled in fear of punishment. She checked the cells, pointlessly. Empty. But. She could sense him - his residue. It wasn’t a scent – or a sound – but she knew he had been there. She closed her eyes, and she knew which direction he’d left in. 

She would not get another chance, that much was certain. If she returned to Headquarters, all she would get was a swift, brutal execution. She unholstered her gun, weighing it in the palm of her hand.  
“Nick,” she said, “Shall I join you now?”

No. He wouldn’t want that. If she finished it right here, all that work – all the effort of drugging herself, training herself up – it was wasted. Nick hated inefficiency. Sam said he hadn’t killed Nick, but his life had still led to Nick’s death, and he’d ruined her. Therefore she would kill him. She had to find him first, but already, somehow, she knew that wouldn’t be a problem. She knew which way he’d gone, and now long-term survival wasn’t an immediate worry, she could dose herself with as much of the formula as she wanted. She got up and hurried to her quarters, which were still intact. In a lock box under her bunk was the syringe and several canisters of formula. She paused, calculating, then unscrewed a cap, drew three times a normal dose into the barrel. Her arms were scarred and her veins shrunken from months of constant jabbing, but it only took her a couple of minutes to force a vein to the surface.

The rush.

A familiar feeling, ten times the intensity. Her vision sharpened, and she could hear the sounds of the desert beyond the base. The smell of ash, mixed with blood, seemed to separate into individual elements. Energy coursed through her.

“C-Commander?”

She turned around abruptly. A young grunt – Parker, Pearson – was hunched in the doorway, white-face, uniform splattered with blood and clutching his gun with both hands.

“I’m not your commander,” Lilith reminded him calmly.

“Where is – what should - …” the boy shifted from foot to foot.

“Shut up.” She closed her eyes and summoned it. It was ridiculously easy. And she knew – part by image and part sound and the rest no sense, just knowledge – “I’m going to Fort Delta.” One of Nick’s old strongholds. It figured that this would end there.

“But that – it’s deserted. There’s no-one there.”

“Sam is there,” Lilith said. “The Weapon. I’m going to kill him. Are you coming?”

“I – I should go back to Headquarters….”

“Do you want me to kill you?” It was a serious question. “I’ll make it quick.”

“No. They won’t – what do you think they’ll do to me?”

Lilith shrugged. The boy quailed, paused, then turned and ran. After a moment, more survivors, started turning up out of the woodwork. Most had been loyal to her, and pretty soon, she had an army of eight grunts. There were more Ghosts than that at the base, but her side had machine guns, body armour and semi-automatics: theirs had whatever mishmash they had scavenged. Lilith holstered her gun, picked up her bag, threw the kit a few things inside, and headed outside to a vehicle. She knew she was following him, for now, and trusted that her abilities wouldn’t fail her.

 

* * *

 

“Oh God,” Sam gagged. The vision was intense, stronger than anything he’d had for years. He sank to his knees, and knew the Ghosts around him were parting, murmuring. 

“Sam?” It wasn’t Dean. Dean was outside. Cas was touching him. Hand on his shoulder. “What is happening?”  
 _The woman, shrunken and bloodied, held him pinned to the wall. She laughed, bloody teeth, and he couldn’t live through this kind of pain –_

 _\- Waves crashed beyond the walls_.

“She’s coming,” he choked, as the vision subsided.

“Who?” Cas looked genuinely worried.

“Alright, stand aside, coming through,” Dean shoved a few people out of the way to kneel next to Sam. “What’s going on?”

“Lilith is coming here. Now.” Sam shook his head to clear it. 

“Are you sure?”

Sam glared at him.

“Alright, so – we’ll get you away from here. Take a road trip,” Dean made to pull Sam to his feet. “No,” Sam said.

“Excuse me?”

“She wants me,” Sam said. “She’s not going to stop persecuting us until I face her.”

“Well we’ll wait outside for her and shoot her!” Dean objected.

“She could have backup,” Sam argued: “They have good weapons. And I don’t know what she can do with her abilities. Forget it – I’m not abandoning you all to die here.”

Pause. Then,

“Sam is right,” Castiel said. “Lilith will not rest until he or she is dead.”

Dean glared at them both for a long moment. Then,

“Alright,” he said evenly. “Showdown. Cas, go and arm the Ghosts.” Cas nodded and left them.

“You shouldn’t order him about like that,” Sam said mildly.

“Oh come on, he likes it,” Dean said crossly. “You should’ve seen him before I started.”

Sam sighed and went to help.

 

* * *

 

Harold Patton, Resistance serial number YB2934, quailed before the Revolutionary Council.

“And she said….she was going to Fort Delta,” he stammered. “To kill him.”

“Doctor, your professional opinion?” Commander Roman turned to Regis, his smooth good-cheer never wavering.

“She’s – a liability,” Regis licked his lips. “It’s hard to say what she’s capable of now – or- what she   
wants.”

“Fort Delta – the solution presents itself,” Alistair smiled nastily: “To kill two birds with one stone. It won't be in any state to withstand the flooding."

“Is the remote dam still in operation?” Roman addressed Azazel.

“Sure is,” Azazel grinned.

“Fan-tastic! Proposal: flood the delta, dispense with Lilith and that boy with the powers at the same time. Dissent?” There was silence. “Alright,” Roman clapped his hands. “Good job everyone. Meg, be a star and dispense with our irresponsible friend here,” he nodded to Regis.

The blonde Lieutenant at Roman’s back said,

“Yes sir,” with perhaps a little too much relish, slipped out from behind the large table and popped up behind Regis. She slit his throat before the terrified man could so much as protest.

“Oh – really…” Roman wrinkled his nose. “Did you have to do it so _messily_?”

Azazel just chuckled and winked at Meg, who returned his smile. Roman pressed a button on his com unit and requested a cleanup.

“Question,” spoke up Azazel: “How do we know when to lift the dam. Too soon and we miss her.”

 

“Interesting problem,” mused Roman. “You feel up to an away mission, my friend?”

“Always,” Azazel grinned.

“Then take a copter and scout out the delta. When Lilith’s people enter, give the signal.” At last, Roman turned his wolfish grin on the grunt. Patton almost vomited with terror. “Dismissed, soldier,” Roman said brightly. Patton saluted and bolted from the room.

 

* * *

 

Dean and Cas stood at the front of the fort with two of the Ghosts, armed with their best weapons. They’d built a hasty barricade out of rocks. It wouldn’t last, but it would give them something to crouch behind when the shooting started.

Becky and Charlie flitted from room to room, checking the Ghosts were as armed as they could be.

Tia and Dylan guarded the vehicles.

Everyone else was stationed around the fort as strategically as possibly, except for the children, who were barricaded in one of the basement rooms with a couple of door guards.

“I want to be out front,” Sam argued. “It’s me she wants.”

“And if she gets you,” Becky pointed out, “What do you think will happen to this place? Face it Sam, you’re their best hope, whether you like it or not. Don’t you think they deserve you to try to live up to that?”

“I didn’t go to all that trouble just to get you killed,” was all Dean would say on the matter. In the end the best he could do was compromise: Sam remained on the lower level, but inside, behind the protection of the walls. It was only when everyone was in position that he remembered – he’d forgotten to tell Dean about the water. The sea in his vision. Well, he reasoned, it couldn’t be important – clearly that part of the vision was wrong. They weren’t right on the shore or anything.

 

* * *

 

“Seven outside,” Lilith lowered the field binoculars. “Move in.”

“They’ll see us,” said one of her grunts nervously: “There’s no cover.”

“And we’ll shoot them faster than they can shoot us,” said Lilith sharply. “Move in.”

 

* * *

 

“Resistance, two o clock,” said Castiel, just as the first spray of bullets rained down around the fort.

“Return fire!” Dean yelled as they came up out of their crouches – two people carriers were visible, and one of the Ghosts got a lucky shot in that blew out a tire, sending one van careering crazily before toppling sideways. Troops spilled out, still firing, and one of the Ghosts to the left of Cas screamed as a bullet ripped into him. Dean managed to kill the first man that entered the delta, and behind him was Lilith. Dean hesitated a split second, and fire tore past the back of his hand, stripping a line of flesh from his lower arm. He barely felt it. Resistance troops were piling out of the second vehicle now, following their leader –

\- Something shook the ground around them. A terrible rumble.

Everyone paused, even Lilith, Dean saw her glance around for an instant, unsure –

“Get back in the fort!” Dean screamed, as the first wave crashed into the delta, water pouring in after it – several of Lilith’s troops, and several of their own, were instantly swept away in the gushing flood. Lilith herself moved unnaturally fast, flinging herself on Dean – her shot her, and the bullet pierced her, remained lodged in her body but didn’t even slow her down. She was on top of him as they fell back together into the fort, Cas bolting the door behind them – water streamed in through the crack. Lilith turned her head, raised a hand, and Cas was flung backwards against the door and pinned, gun dropping uselessly from his hand. The Ghosts who had made it inside fired or ran – but one of Lilith’s grunts had made it in with a machine gun. Water splashed over Dean’s face and he spluttered, but it also caused Lilith to release him. She jerked up, eyes bloodshot and practically smelling the air, then bolted with that unnatural speed through the corridors.

 

* * *

 

“The struts gonna collapse!” yelled Charlie. Water was crashing in now from every crack in the fortifications.  
“Go higher!” called Sam, heading for the steps himself, his vision of the high stone room in the back of his mind but seeing no alternative. 

 

* * *

Still stunned, Dean lay on his back, gasping, and water flooded his mouth. Cas grabbed his arm and pulled him up. They pursued Lilith down the corridor, saw her disappear up a staircase. They were about to follow, but she turned around, hand extended, and the stairs collapsed behind her.

“Fuck!” Dean yelled.

“Breach!” screamed somebody from the next room, and cold water was suddenly flooding faster, pumping to waist height.

 

* * *

 

Lilith and Sam met in the high stone room. He had Ghosts running after him, but she raised a hand and slammed the door on them, locking it from the inside.

“Samuel-“ she began.

“Yeah yeah yeah. How about we skip the monologue and just do this?”

“Fine,” she bit off, raised her hand again, and the force that came off her was like nothing he’d ever felt. Like a wall being slammed into him, like a sandstorm, there was stone against his back before he even knew what was happening. For the first time, real fear coursed through him. She was stronger than he was. He couldn’t touch her. No – he could touch her – he expended as much as he could, pushing back against her, and her grip on him lessened but didn’t give –

\- Then she smirked through bloodied teeth, just as in his vision, and he was pinned flat again against the wall. Lilith twisted her hand. And he felt it in his body – he was tearing apart, inside out, and his heart beat, beat, beat, ready to burst – veins were pulsing in Lilith’s forehead, and yes she was probably going to kill herself, but she was killing him too, just as she’d wanted.  
Water groaned and smashed beneath the floor.

TBC


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OMGGG, Livejournal finally came back online long enough for me to retrieve this. Then it promptly died again. Research is gonna be a bitch today :S

“Flooding now,” Azazel said through the communicator. “Antipcate total collapse in t-minus five minutes.” He clicked off.

“I wouldn’t count on it.”

Azazel almost jumped out of his skin. He turned around – directly into the gun barrel aimed between his eyes.  
“Evening squire.”

“ _You_ ”. The word was a sneer - he confronted his old nemesis.

“You shouldn’t count a chap out of things till you’ve seen the corpse,” Crowley said lightly. “Close the dam.”

“Are you serious?” Azazel gave a short laugh, aware that he sounded vaguely hysterical. For all his bravado, he’d never actually been this close to the business end of a weapon that could kill him. He rapidly decided that he didn’t like it. “ _Why?_?”

“Tick-tock,” said Crowley sweetly, and cocked the trigger. Azazel gulped and folded, pressing the button on his remote control to re-seal the dam.

“Now drain the delta,” Crowley commanded. Azazel pressed another button, unsealing several drainage tunnels built into the earth around the fort.

“Why?” he asked again. “Don’t you want Lilith dead? And the boy?” 

“Oh yes. Nothing would give me more satisfaction than gutting the little bitch, and that smug choirboy has been nothing but aggravation. Alas, like a child in a candy store, what we want isn’t always what’s best for us.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I _need_ at least one of them alive,” Crowley sighed. “Contact in the State wants to meet one. See what they’re made of. ” He shrugged one shoulder. “Literally.”

“The _State_?” Azazel ground out. “Crowley. I knew you were low, but-”

“You obviously failed to appreciate the depths of my ingenuity,” Crowley said boredly. “I may not have the means to obtain one at this moment, but I certainly can’t go letting you kill them both. Now land this contraption, you ignorant little monkey.”

Azazel had no choice but to comply, with the gun barrel pressed to the base of his skull. When they grounded, Crowley fired.

* * *

“Push!” Charlie was screaming.

“No, run!” yelled Dean.

“If we let it go we’re toast!” A small crowd of Ghosts was holding a steel panel over a breach in the wall, desperately pushing back against the water.

“She’s right!” yelled Castiel over the noise of the water. “If we can’t keep this hall sealed the foundations will collapse!” Water streamed around the edges of the panel.

Suddenly, with a shock, the force pushing back against them lessened. It seemed to surge backwards, then return, less strong, and the streams around the edges turned to trickle.

“Listen!” gasped Charlie, and they all heard it – a groan, swish, suck. The water pulled backwards again.

“It’s – draining?” Dean was afraid to voice it as more than a question.

“There are tunnels,” Cas whispered. “Someone must have….” He trailed off. The groan-swish came again, and they weren’t pushing back with all their combined strength anymore, just – holding the panel in place. 

“Sam,” said Dean, leaving Charlie and Dylan to hold the panel, and ran for the remains of the staircase. Cas was right behind him. There was nothing left to climb, but Becky found a couple of wooden crates, and if Dean balanced on them and gave Castiel a boost, Cas could reach the edge of the hole in the floor above them. he pulled himself up, then reached back to give Dean a hand up. The next staircase was intact, and they thundered up it – 

\- To find Sam and Lilith, locked in a shodwon, each holding the other pinned by their powers. Both their faces were red and strained, teeth gritted and noses and bleeding. Each held a hand out in front of them, the other frozen –

Without hesitation, Dean emptied his gun into Lilith’s back. She collapsed forward, horribly alive far longer than she should have been, too long until she stilled. Sam collapsed, barely conscious, and Dean fell to his knees and closed his eyes.

“ _Kyrie elesion_ ,” said Cas quietly, and closed Lilith’s eyes.

* * *

“We cannot stay here,” said Castiel quietly. He was standing in the doorway of Sam and Dean’s room, as composed as Dean had ever seen him.

“What else is new?” Dean said tonelessly. He was watching Sam sleep, one arm bandaged and held in place by a sling. Their resident ‘doctor’, a Ghost named Sarah who’d been two years into State med school when she’d been forced to run, had pronounced that so far as she could tell Sam was healthy – just unconscious.

“And he’s unconscious because?” Dean had pressed her. Sarah had spread her hands, wide-eyed:

“Short-circuited? Your guess is as good as mine. I’ve never met anyone bioengineered. All I can say is that heart, blood-pressure et cetera are relatively normal, and I’d just…let him sleep.”  
Dean was about to yell at her, but Becky cleared her throat and glared at him, and he said gruffly, “Thanks,” instead, before settling in to watch Sam. That had been a couple of hours ago, and the Ghosts were salvaging all that they could from the Base and their damaged supplies.

“Only the Resistance could have opened the dam,” Cas went on. “They know we’re here.”

“So who drained it?” Dean asked.

“I have no idea. But I certainly wouldn’t count on the continued goodwill of our mysterious benefactor.”

“God I’m tired of this,” Dean put his head in his hands momentarily. “Always being hunted.”

Cas paused. Dean knew he wouldn’t like what was coming next. 

“It is not you they’re hunting,” Cas said quietly: “You do have the option of saving yourself.”

“By leaving Sam. Forget it. I don’t even know why, sometimes, God knows he can be a bitch, and it isn’t always easy, but dammit, I just know I can’t ever do that.”

Pause.

“You would not be the man I have come to admire if you could,” said Cas, and disappeared.

“He’s getting better.”

Dean jumped. “Hey,” he squeezed Sam’s fingers. “How long you been awake?”

“Long enough,” Sam shifted uncomfortably. “Ugh. I feel like I got hit by a…planet.”

“Lilith’s dead,” said Dean.

“I know. You killed her.”

Pause. For a moment Dean wondered if Sam was angry, but then Sam blew out his breath and said,

“Thanks. I – really am gonna have to start saving your ass for a change.”

“I’m not keep score,” Dean shrugged, then winced as the movement pulled on his damaged arm.

“You okay?” said Sam.

“All things considered? I got off pretty lightly.”

A shadow fell over Sam’s face. “Oh. How many…how many…?”

“Twelve of ours dead. All of theirs, however many there were of them.”

Sam swallowed. Wordlessly Dean passed him a tin cup of water.

“So,” Sam said, lying back. “The water. I think I forgot to tell you about that.” 

Dean explained about the dam and drainage system.

“But – why? I understand the State flooding it, but why would they drain it?”

“Cas is going with Act of God,” Dean’s mouth quirked. Sam smiled half-heartedly. 

“I’m – glad,” he said after a moment. “That you have a friend.”

“Gee thanks,” said Dean dryly. “Nice to know my choice of buddies meets with your approval.” 

Sam gathered himself, then pushed himself up on his elbows, grabbed Dean and pulled his face in to kiss his mouth. Dean did kiss him back, but Sam could tell that he was smiling at the same time, and wondered if the smile wasn’t a little bit at his expense.

 

* * *

“Then what?” Becky scurried after Castiel, scribbling frantically in Chuck’s old journal. 

“I believe I have already told you that Dean shot Lilith. In fact I have told you several times.” Castiel deposited the crate he was carrying into the back of the van, then turned, nearly colliding with Becky.

“YES BUT WHAT WAS IT LIKE?” Becky practically yelled. “Dammit Cas I need descriptions! Dialogue, face expressions, _body language_! What’s the point of me recording the New Movement if the narrative is so dry no-one reads it?”

“Perhaps Sam and Dean would be better people to ask for the details of the incident,” Castiel said mildly, trying to maneauver around her to receive a box of computer equiptment from Charlie, but Becky sighed:

“Dean already told me he wouldnn’t help anymore. Actually he told me something much ruder than that, but I won’t report it. And Sam barely remembers the whole thing. Come on Cas the future needs you!” she followed him into the building.

The Ghosts were packing. 

“Why are they following us?” Dean said lamely. “I don’t know where we’re going. Why do they imagine we can protect a bunch of civilians from the State _and_ the Resistance?”

“Dean,” said Sam: “Look around. Look at them. They’re not just civilians anymore.”  
It was true. The Ghosts worked with a quiet efficiency, handled weapons like they knew what they were doing, packed perishable food items correctly, purifying water. They discarded what they didn’t need without sentimentality, and worked together without getting in each other’s way.

“They’re soldiers,” said Dean. “Fuck, Sam, what have we done?” 

“What they asked us to.”

“Did they though?”

“Look, we never made any promises. God knows you tried your best to discourage them from imagining we could help them. But, Dean, you’re _good_ at this.”

“At what?”

“ _This_.” Sam waved an arm in an expansive gesture. “Organizing people. Training them. I’m not saying I believe Chuck’s destiny stuff,” Sam held up a hand to stall Dean’s objections. “But I’m saying – you want a better future, right?”

“No that’s you. I just hate the State and the Resistance bastards with equal passion.”

“Whatever, don’t admit it then. Your actions speak otherwise. I’ve been having ideas-“

“Nooo…”

“What if me, you, Castiel, we had a sort of – training facility…that moved around. All schools were peripatetic once, we don’t need a permanent building.”

“Training them to do what?” Dean narrowed his eyes.

“Survive, mostly. Defend themselves but also - make assaults, if they want t. Sabotage a few of the State’s more horrific-“

“And then what, exactly,” Dean cut him off sharply, “Distinguishes us from Resistance terrorists?”

“Um, the fact we’re not trying to take over the world, for one thing, but to _stop_ it being taken over by one of two destructive powers too blind to realize how _exactly alike_ they are.”

“Hm,” Dean shoved his hands in his pockets and glared at the nearest people carrier as though it has personally offended him. 

“Look,” said Sam, pointing towards where Sarah and Dylan were shepherding a couple of children out to a transit further away. “That little boy’s mother was killed by Resistance shrapnel, and when he got here he had a wound on his arm that was well on its way to being septic. Sarah said he wouldn’t have lasted much longer in the Badlands. What’s he gonna do when he grows up? Drift around as a Ghost forever - get caught in the crossfire and killed – or could there be another option?”

“I agree with Sam.”

“ARGH! Cas, I swear to God, I am gonna put a bell on you.”

“Why would you want to do that?”

“So you – never mind. So you’re on board with this crazy scheme, huh?”

“It would seem….that of the limited options left to us in this world, it is one of the most sensible, in addition to being morally sound.”

“Dammit.” Dean covered his face with his hands theatrically. “I just knew you two would gang up on me.”

Sam and Cas shared a repressed smile and from behind them, Becky let out a noise that was cross between a squeak and a sigh, hugging Chuck’s journal to her chest. 

“Oh my God, this is gonna be the greatest love triangle romance story the world has ever known.”

TBC – Epilogue.


	19. Chapter 19

And that is the story of how Dean killed Lilith. (Although really, in the opinion of the writer, it was mostly thanks to Sam. I mean Dean fired the actual bullet, and he did turn out to be pretty awesome when he wasn‘t being a . But it was totally Sam who heroically used himself to entice and trap her despite knowing it was him she wanted to kill. And so, like the great teachers of old - 

Becky frowned, crossed out old, and wrote antiquity Then she crossed out antiquity and wrote, historic times. She huffed, and dropped the journal.

“Problem?” Charlie asked, looking up from her prize - a new laptop. New being a relative term: the hardware was an assemblage of bits and pieces scrounged in barter, and assembled by a Ghost who’d passed through their school the previous week.

“Just the words,” Becky sighed. “Trying to find the words to properly express…”

“lemme see that,” said Charlie, and Becky handed her manuscript, which she began to read with a frown of concentration.

“Someone coming,” said Simon, suddenly standing up - the orphaned Ghost boy whom Sarah had treated had finally told them his name and started to speak a bit.

Everyone ran for the window.

Currently, the school was set up in a former Ghost town - village really, town would be too generous. why it had been abandoned was anyone’s guess, as the builidngs were still relatively sturdy, and no rotting or diseased corpses were lying around. Charlie and Becky were supposed to be on watch, but in truth, Becky had  
been mostly writing and Charlie was trying to pick up a wireless signal.

The newcomers were a boy and a girl in their teens – he dark and she blonde. His right hand was bandaged, and there was a bruise on her cheek. They met them at the gates.

“Is this the camp?” the boy demanded.

“Depends,” Charlie leaned on her shotgun: “What kind of camp are you looking for?”

“The camp,” insisted the girl: “Where you come to like, train to fight.”

“Both our parents were killed by the Resistance,” the boy blurted suddenly. “But – my mom always said – it was the State’s fault we lived that way.”

“We hate the State,” the girl added. “But now we know what the Resistance is, we can never go there.”

“Alright,” Becky nodded. “You’ve come to the right place. We’ll take you to Sam and Dean.”

The teens’ faces lit up – they had obviously heard the names before.

“And who are you?” Charlie asked.

“Ben,” said the boy.

“Claire,” said the girl.

They led them through the gates and into the town.

The End.


End file.
